From Wildlife Extra:
Very Rare Leucistic White Red Deer Stag Spotted in the Highlands
An extremely rare white red deer has been spotted by staff of the John Muir Trust on the west coast of Scotland. The last recorded wild, white stag in Britain was shot by poachers in October last year on the border of Devon and Cornwall.
Fran Lockhart, Partnership Manager for the John Muir Trust snapped photos and some video footage of the beast while on a field trip. ‘It was amazing to crawl up so close to such a magnificent looking animal. He looked almost ghost like next to the group of young red stags that he was mixing with.’
Mythological Beast
White deer are potent figures in the mythology of many cultures. The Celts considered them to be messengers from the otherworld. They are closely identified with unicorns and their appearance is said to herald some profound change in the lives of those that encounter them. Fans of C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia will be very familiar with the white stag that the children in Narnia hunt deep into the forest only to find themselves back in their own world again.
May 2013. To avoid accidents, motorists should slow down and be on the lookout for deer on the road in May, warns Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH): here.
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- TOMORROW: Those Dear Deer (leslienotes.typepad.com)
- Should rare deer be protected? (wiscnews.com)
- Proposal to ban killing white deer appears to pass locally (wiscnews.com)
