Sika deer (Cervus nippon) move to wildlife refuges during the hunting season. In Kushiro, located in the eastern part of Japan's northern-most island Hokkaido, Sika deer density increases during the hunting season. While sika deer behavior is affected by hunting pressure, there are only a few studies where the relationship between hunting pressure and Sika deer behavior is identified, using detailed movement with GPS collars in Japan. This study investigated whether sika deer move to wildlife refuges to avoid hunting pressure. Differences in behavior between the hunting season and the closed (non-hunting) season was evaluated for 20 sika deer equipped with GPS collars (Lotek Iridium M2D), over a period of 365 days with, location data received every three hours. We calculated 95% home ranges (ha) for each month using the a-LoCoH method and the areas where home ranges and wildlife refuges overlap were designated as the protected home range (PHR). PHR use between the hunting season and the closed season was compared and analyzed using a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM). Our results showed that there was no difference in PHR use between the hunting season and the closed season in Kushiro (p = 0.79). Furthermore, the results showed that sika deer did not identify and use wildlife refuges selectively as a form of predation avoidance during the hunting season.