Locals (deer) shut visitors out of Nara Park cool-down misting station【Video】

Because if summer is freakishly hot for humans, it’s hot for deer too.

Nara Park is Nara City’s biggest tourist draw, and it gets an especially large number of visitors during the summer travel season. But as an outdoor attraction, tourists need to be mindful of this year’s record-breaking heat when visiting the park.

To help prevent heat exhaustion, the city of Nara has set up a number of mist stations around the park, metal frames that stretch over and across walkways to cool off pedestrians passing underneath. It’s to be expected that some people might slow their steps underneath the mist, in order to prolong that moment of relief from the heat, but with Japan being a well-mannered country, most people don’t linger too long.

However, there’s one group that feels no remorse about parking themselves right underneath the apparatus and occupying as much of the misting space as they can, and as you can see in this video…

…it’s the deer!

Nara Park is most famous for its herds of wild deer that are allowed to roam freely through the grounds. The deer are thoroughly accustomed to people being around, so they feel no need to vacate walkways or other spaces when tourist crowds show up, and they’ve completely commandeered the misting station in the video, which was recorded on Tuesday.

“That’s so unfair of them,” says one girl being interviewed in the video, but from the laughter in her voice it’s pretty clear she’s got her tongue in her cheek, and others commenting on the video are similarly understanding of the deer’s behavior.

“They look so cute cooling off all together!”
“Those Nara deer sure are smart.”
“You can feel their aura of ‘We are NOT moving from here.’”
“It’s Nara, so it makes sense that deer should have priority.”
“Local residents get priority seats.”
“I mean, it’s like they’re wearing fur coats, so they’ve got to feel even hotter than we humans do.”
“Yeah, the deer should be the ones who get to use the mist stations. Humans have other ways to stay cool.”
“’Hey, humans, if it’s too hot for you than go home. Oh, but leave the deer crackers.”

This isn’t the first year for Nara Park to set up mist stations. Similar to the mysterious shikadamari, it’s become an annual tradition for deer to commandeer one or more of them on particularly hot days, and with Japan’s scorching summer still having some sizzling days ahead, the occupation is likely to continue, with the stations currently scheduled to be in operation until September 16.

Source: YouTube/MBS NEWS, Nara Prefecture
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