The Resident’s photographer captured this image of two white fallow deer, and another sandy coloured-deer, amongst a herd of about 15 animals in St Leonard’s Forest, Horsham, this week.
While striking in appearance - particularly when hopping across a field covered in a layer of snow - but isn’t actually that rare.
The common variety is the familiar tan/fawn colour with white spotting on the flanks.
The Menil variety is paler, lacks the black bordered rump and keeps its white spots all year. The black variety is almost entirely black with no white coloration anywhere.
Finally, the white variety can be white to sandy coloured and becomes more white at adulthood. This is a true colour variety and not albinism, which is rare.
The rare white deer is the white-coated roebuck, which experts say is not an albino, and is so unusual that only a handful have been seen in Britain since the end of the Second World War.
In 2009, one was found and was expected to fetch bids of £6,000 by trophy hunters wanting a rare kill. The news of the bidding war made national headlines, and animal rights campaigners were outraged, nicknaming the deer ‘Pearl. Even a Facebook page was set up!
As far as we know, Pearl is still alive!
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