I visited Miyajima on the 26th of May and took some photos. The photos on this post are from that day. No-one was feeding the deer when I was there and the animals were just lying around in the town. I brought some food with me (apples and some rabbit food). As soon as they saw it they went crazy and gathered around me from all over. The deer have always been pretty cheeky but it was obvious how desperate they were.

Some of them looked ok but very thin. Others looked very bad, extremely skinny with their coats in poor condition. Partly, this was probably because at this time of year the deer are shedding their winter coats. However, other deer (such as the deer in the first picture) looked like they were suffering from skin disease. A few others looked quite ill and hardly moved. One fawn in particular looked very sick and unlikely to last much longer.