WANTED: Muntjac, ¥2,000 per Sighting — What Is This Cute-Looking Deer, and Why Is Japan Paying People to Spot It?
A Reeves's muntjac was sighted in Sakai, Ibaraki Prefecture in late April — the first confirmed sighting in two years and five months. Under Ibaraki's first-of-its-kind ¥2,000 bounty program for citizen-submitted photos, this should have been the first qualifying case. Why is Japan offering cash for sightings of a cute, dog-sized deer? We unpack the agricultural damage, the SFTS tick-borne disease angle, the unsettling lessons from Britain, and what happens if the front line in Ibaraki fails.