OUTBREAK: Alien Creatures in Chiba
The southern part of Chiba prefecture is in the midst of an outbreak. A animals of a species that is alien to Japan escaped from a zoo some years ago, and they have multiplied so quick that their current population could be as high as 9,000.
Here’s a wonderfully sensational NTV news report about the situation:
The animals are Reeves’s Muntjacs, a species of small deer that are native to parts of China and Taiwan. Although they look tiny, they have huge appetites. The many farms in that region of Chiba prefecture have provided the animals with plenty of food. Farmers are quite angry about all the damage to their crops.
There are no large predators that would threaten the munjacs, so they have been steadily reproducing. The installation of netting and fencing around farms has not done much to prevent them from obtaining food. Because these animals are small, fast, and usually come out at night, it seems that local hunters aren’t having much luck with killing or capturing them. The munjacs also seem clever enough to avoid most animal traps.
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