this post was submitted on 12 May 2024
267 points (98.5% liked)

Asklemmy

43963 readers
1183 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

It has always amused me that the tourists to the US that I’ve spoken to are often very excited to see raccoons, and disappointed if they don’t see them before they leave.

Some others I’ve noticed on the east coast of the US are blue jays and cardinals. Boy, do people get excited about those if they’ve never seen them before! Very pretty birds of course, just very easy to get used to and see as uninteresting as well.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I'm not Japanese but have been living here most of a decade. As no one mentioned anything from that side yet, the Nara Deer are probably the most famous followed by the hotspring monkeys. Tanuki are also something people might want to see, off the top of my head.

My wife was super surprised by all the squirrels in the US and loved taking pictures and videos. She suddenly realized we kept seeing more of them as we walked and, yep, they're everywhere.

She was also super surprised that people just had cattle and horses when we'd be driving where my US family lived (countryside).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Went to Japan a few months ago. Deer and monkeys, yep.

What blew me away is how it was done - literally living side by side with the animals. Walking next to a deer or being a foot away from the monkey gave me amazing respect for Japan.

Where in the states, we either keep them in cages or fenced off, or we treat them like a nuance and if they come too close, respond with hostility (including the American Deer).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

That's really not normal here. The deer in Nara have special protections and are super accustomed to humans. They actually were menacing the residents of the area when tourists dried up. The monkeys can be real dicks and aggressive in general. Farmers are always trying to run both off. It's basically the same as the US except I can't just kill dear that come on to my property and eat my crops.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

my property

Vs

their ancestral grazing lands

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

If they want to pay my property taxes and feed me, then we can argue that. At the moment, it's my land (~8000 sqm) on which I pay taxes and on which I grow my own food. However, it's all a moot point because, at least as of now, I've not seen deer on my actual property; it was just meant to contrast how things work in two countries with which I am familiar.

The actual problem around here is wild boar which are not ancestrally doing anything in my neck of the woods but have migrated north due to human-caused climate change.