he is an email i received from my Dad who lives in Mission, Texas. this was sent to him by an ex-army buddy who also lives in Texas A very eventful day around here... A once in many lifetimes experience! Mark saw this lil' feller run out in front of a car, thought it was a lost baby goat. Stopped to get it, and WOW. A real Albino Whitetail Deer. Just hours old, but doing fine. No Mama deer around. Another car nearly hit it in front of Mark... Well,, he is THE neatest thing any of us ever saw. And such a 'freak of nature', that only 1 in more than a million are even born. He took his bottle of food, followed us around the house, doing great. So, we called the Zoo & Fossil Rim, who were both interested, but going to send him to a Rehab farm, at a vet that we have never gotten along with... So, one of Dad's best friends is our Game Warden. Kinda reluctantly, but, I called him and told him the deal. He came right over, of course... and assured me that he wouldn't take it to that vet, that he was going to 'go to higher levels' than that with him.. So, he is gone now. We got a lot of pix, and something we will never see again probably, so it was very cool. Maybe he will make it in captivity somewhere and be appreciated. So rare... Sure wanted to keep him tho. but, not the thing to do. And not LEGAL either ; But, here are a couple of pix to show ya. He was snow white, pink eyes, ears, nose and hooves. Kids called him POWDER. He was SO small. That is my shoe lying beside him... WOW..how cool is that??
Well it is not the proverbial white buffalo, but it is a cuteie. Of course as a mammal I am programed that way.
What a darling. I wonder if his mother abandoned him? Or perhaps she was hit by a car? He is very lucky to have found your Dad's buddy. I hope you keep us posted as to where he ended up and how he is doing. We had a white deer that lived in the Mission Valley area of San Diego for years. Wild, but also quite tame. She would visit local houses and they would leave a treat or two for her. I hope your fish and wildlife people do better for your darling than for our white deer.
Wow I did not realize that we had deer in the city. I see plenty of coyotes here in La Mesa and skunks, coons, etc but nothing that cute!
A simple google search reveals this as an urban legend. http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/albinodeer.asp
The deer was in Mission Valley. About thirty or so years ago. It used to frequent houses of people who would supply "handouts". I don't think it was albino, just light colored and some people called it the white deer because at night it looked white. Fish and Game decided it was "dangerous" and they would relocate it. Without informing anyone. They shot it with a tranquilizer gun and overdosed it and it died. The people who used to feed the deer were outraged but I doubt anyone in San Diego remembers it anymore. But I do. I also remember when there used to be cows in Mission Valley.
That's what makes it an urban legend. People send this stuff around as if it is fact because they want to believe it to be true. The photos look real and probably are. The story is more than likely made up. It looks this urban legend may have been around for a couple of years but it is currently experiencing a spike in popularity. As I mentioned in the duplicate post on this topic ( ), this urban legend has remained unconfirmed since at least 13 July 2005. (I have googled earlier references on the net.)
Awesome job Kiloran. I did not read the first two lines of Dave's post, so I though HE was relating the story. Basically, whenever I get an email from a friend or relative, who is forwarding an email that they received from a "friend," my B.S. meter immediately pegs. I usually delete the email, or do like you and take a quick peek at snopes. Regardless, my cat thinks the fawn looks delicious.
This is in my back yard--bit of drive, but I've seen them! they are NOT albino deer, but I'll bet if you take a picture of a young one you could get a red eye effect on it. http://www.anl.gov/Science_and_Technology/...l_Tour/deer.htm White Deer at Argonne Visitors to Argonne National Laboratory-East are sometimes startled by the white deer roaming the site and occasionally speculate on the nature of the experiment that produced their unusual coloring. But the deer are perfectly normal fallow deer (Dama dama), a naturally light-colored species native to North Africa, Europe and parts of Asia. There are about 40 on the Argonne site. The white deer herd began as a herd of 38 animals roaming the estate of Gustav Freund, inventor of "skinless" casings for hot dogs. It had grown from eight or nine, a gift or purchase from Chicago clothier Maurice L. Rothchild. A heavy snowstorm in the late 1930s forced the deer to forage in the estate's fruit orchard. The Freunds preferred fresh fruit to the deer, so many were given away to parks and zoos. Those that remained were destroyed by the local game warden. All, that is, except two does. One gave birth to a buck, and the herd began to grow in number again. Born a creamy tan with white spots, the deer become white after reaching their first year. Bucks' antlers are "palmated" - wide and flat like those of moose - and are shed each April or May. The bucks stand about four feet high at the shoulder. Bucks can use their antlers as a slashing weapon, but fights between males are mostly shoving matches in which the deer lower their heads and lock antlers. The Argonne Fire Department has been called out to separate bucks with hopelessly locked headgear. Except for the mating season, the bucks and does maintain separate groupings. Sometimes large groups may be seen at one time in a clearing, usually in the early morning. The deer roam freely on the Argonne site. Sometimes they wander through the entrances and end up as far away as Lockport, 12 miles from the laboratory, and Fermilab, 17 miles away. But most stay within the laboratory's confines. Argonne does not own the deer, or feed them. The laboratory is also home to about 60 native white-tailed deer, commonly referred to at Argonne as "brown deer" to distinguish them from their light-colored cousins. The two species tolerate each other. They tend not to compete for food: whitetails are browsers, eating mostly leaves, while the fallow deer are grazers, partial to the abundant mown grass on the site. White-tailed and fallow deer cannot interbreed.
