Taking hints from research by forestry experts, who found that deer shunned the aroma of the king of beasts, officials at the local branch of West Japan Railway Co (JR West) got the material they needed from a local amusement park.

"I forget how much, but it was a whole lot. I think about 100 kg (220 lb)," Takao Maeda of JR West in Shingu, some 450 km (280 miles) west of Tokyo, said yesterday.

"They sort of mixed it with water and then spread it along the tracks."

The strategy appears to have worked for now.

For along a 400 meter (1,300 ft) stretch of tracks where a number of deer were struck last year - the Asahi Shimbun newspaper said 30 between January and October - none have been hit since the dung was spread last November.

In fact, officials are now looking to spread the success even further by using the same method elsewhere.

Maeda admitted that there is, however, a huge drawback.

"The odor is really, really foul," he said. "So we can only use it on tracks in uninhabited areas."

The plan is also apparently hard on the amusement park, which freezes the dung and stocks it until needed.