When Nara Deer Attack in The Ancient Capital Before the Ancient Capital

Nara is the city that flows with deer and ancient history. in that order, since the deer seem to have outshone the cultural artifacts in this smaller, more manageable version of Kyoto.
 
Nara was the ancient acoital before kyoto and later toyko (then called edo) but only for about 75 yrs (this was around the late 790s).
 
First, the culture. there are a lot of ancient artifacts and statues, primarily wooden, from the heian and kamakura periods around the 13th and 12th centuries. I hit a lot of exhibits that day but here are the highlights:
 
Big Buddha - the biggest cultural historical attraction is the big buddha (daibatsu) which is a huge metal statue (damaged and restored a lot, unfortunately) housed in what is supposed to be the largest wooden structure in the world (also damaged and restored a lot, unfortunately).   the big buddha is always surrounded by various guardians - various spirits/deities in humanoid form usually wielding weapons and armor. pretty cool, actually. one of the pillars in the back of the hall has a hole at the base and squeezing through it is supposed to give you good fortune.  the whole was so small - I saw one middle-aged, thin woman do it, but it`s literally maybe 16 inches x 18 inches or so. I wonder if anyone gets stuck trying, esp westerners...
 
Kosuga Shrine(s)- the second neatest cultural monument is the kosuga shrine and its accompanying min-shrines which are nestled in a beautiful forest with walkways lined by thousands of ancient stone lanterns. the shrine is amazingly brightly painted orange and has several metal lanterns hanging (most are grey metal but some are gold colored, wonder what the difference is?) but what was even neater was wandering through the lush cool forest and coming upon other mini shrines that are related to it. one shrine had all these heart-shaped prayer requests - I think it was to the Japanese buddhist/shinto cupid equivalent.  Moto said that a lot of people send prayers for a lasting marriage or just getting into a relationship.
 
Sword exhibit - this was pretty cool.  there was a special exhibit on ancient japanese swords.  I`ve heard that japanese sword making was far ahead of its time - their swords were so sharp that the most common battle injuries were dismemberment, rather than regular wounds. (the fact that metal was so scarce that most armor was lacquer might`ve contributed to that too?). looking at these ancient blades from the 13th or 12 centuries, i could not see any difference than the stuff made today with modern technology. pretty impressive
 
Greek Influenced Shin-Yakuishiji Temple - another sort of neat thing thing was this shrine that had greek influence. yes, greek influence. it was built in 747 and the greek influence was ｄirectly related to how far east Alexander the Great conquered and hellenized asian cultures.  he never got to japan, of course, but the fact that this influence lasted for so long such that 1,000+ yrs later it had influenced building techniques across the sea  is rather noteworthy. the temple also has a famous statue of Bazara, a rather angry looking guardian/deity of buddha (he`s got so many it`s hard to keep track)
 
And now back to the deer - the deer are quite friendly (and hungry and likely obese) as there are no natural predators and tourists such as myself buy special deer cakes to feed them. the cakes look like normally cookies and so I can see how some people might start eating them by accident (or this could be just an urban myth?). the deer are revered because in they are considered messengers of the gods in shintoism (I got a picture of a deer family lazily crossing the road as traffic stopped, waiting for them, and people took pictures. really cute)
 
the deer feel so comfortable just walking up to you to be petted (moto put his FDNY baseball cap on one) and the more aggressive ones (typically males) will push and shove you if they see you buying cakes.  one literally attacked me as I was buying some - good thing I came not long after antler shaving in october or it would`ve been painful! besides saving tourists like me, the antler shaving also reduces the casualties of aggression. I saw  a pair of males in a duel, but since the antlers were mere nubs they just kept on hitting their heads together. sorta funny and sad. it was as if they hadn`t yet figured out they don`t have antlers
I do wonder though, about overpopulation and deer droppings all over the place. there are so many deer that I can see it being a problem. do they use birth control for deer? are they neutered/spayed after a certain age? is there a one child policy?  is there a street cleaner that vacuums up all the bb-sized droppings? maybe some are deported to other deerless parks for colonization? (the deer in miyajima are also without fear and are often petted). deep thoughts