Take our user survey and make your voice heard.
The Nara District Court on Wednesday sentenced a 23-year-old man to 10 months in prison, suspended for three years, for killing a protected deer in February.
Hayato Yoshii, a 23-year-old construction worker from Mie Prefecture, was convicted of killing the deer with a hatchet at around 2 a.m. on Feb 7 in Nara Prefecture, in violation of the law that protects cultural properties.
Yoshii was arrested for drunk driving in Matsusaka, Mie Prefecture, on Feb 10, Sankei Shimbun reported. He was later charged with killing the deer after Nara prefectural police identified his car through surveillance camera footage in Nara Park.
Yoshii told police he had been driving through the park and killed the deer in a fit of anger after it rammed his car.
© Japan Today
13 Comments
Login to comment
foreignbrotherhoodarmy
Another big Japanese man picking on weak animals.
Aly Rustom
what was he doing with a hatchet in his car in the first place?
smithinjapan
So.... he killed the deer... with a hatchet... in a fit of drunken rage... and he gets a suspended sentence? What part of what he did deserves that? Let me guess... he apologized and said he had been drunk.
Sanjinosebleed
Drunk while driving is OK???
Let alone the slaughter of the poor deer. Model citizen....
Goodlucktoyou
Karma will get him. Just a matter of time. Loser.
nandakandamanda
I remember this being reported here at the time. Wasn't this the guy who picked just any deer as he couldn't be sure which one had 'rammed' his car?
nandakandamanda
Just checked and it was a different deer.
Good article (in Japanese) here where the writer explains why he was charged with damaging cultural property and not under animal welfare laws which might have carried a heavier sentence, if he had killed a domestic cat for example.
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/byline/ishiimasumi/20210304-00225414/
sir_bentley28
So let me get this straight! He was driving drunk in Nara, a deer hit his car and he killed it with a hatchet, but he walks free? Must be good to be a Japanese person to get away with all of these crimes! If I were stopped and the police even smelt a trace of alcohol in my car, that's a wrap for me! Let alone violently killing a PROTECTED animal!
Toshihiro
Alcohol seems to give people diplomatic immunity to people when it comes to crimes. You know, attacking something with a hatchet isn't an actions of a drunken person, that's the actions of a crazy man. I wonder if they'll arrest you if you accidentally ran over and killed a dear
krustytheclown
It sounds like he needs help with both his drinking and controlling his anger. Maybe the court should have ordered him to seek treatment in addition to the suspended sentence.
Zaphod
So the deer rammed his car and not the other way round? And he is carrying a hatchet with him? Weird.
nandakandamanda
No, if you want to get it straight, apparently one deer butted his car, but he then killed another deer with an axe in revenge.
Quote from article linked above.
奈良県警によりますと男は「シカと遊んでいたとき、突然車に体当たりしてきたため腹が立ち、殺してやると思って、おのでシカの頭を力いっぱい切り付けた」と供述しています。体当たりしてきたシカと、切りつけたシカは別だそうです。Translation. According to the Nara Police, the man admitted, "When I was playing with a deer, it suddenly charged the car so I got angry and felt like killing it. I struck the deer's head with all my strength." The deer which butted his car and the one he cut were different.