Local News

"Is that Santa's deer?" Rare albino deer spotted in north Raleigh neighborhood

Far more pleasant than discovering a zebra cobra, a family found a beautiful white deer in their north Raleigh neighborhood.
Posted 2021-07-19T13:33:59+00:00 - Updated 2021-08-10T15:43:23+00:00
White deer spotted in our backyard in Raleigh

Far more pleasant than discovering a zebra cobra, a family found a beautiful white deer in their north Raleigh neighborhood.

Among the wildlife we've been seeing around the city, especially lately, the sighting of a rare albino deer is particularly magical – with only one in 30,000 deer being truly albino.

The video sent by a WRAL viewer truly captures the magic of seeing this white deer in the wild. A child can be heard in the background asking, "Is that Santa's deer?"

Albino deer lack pigmentation and have a completely white hide and pink eyes, nose and hooves, according to the North Carolina Wildlife Commission.

We spotted a white deer this afternoon in our backyard.
We spotted a white deer this afternoon in our backyard.

That means WRAL viewer David Laudadio was doubly lucky back in December, when he spied two of these majestic deer in Wake Forest.

Back in 2019, Bryan Mims went searching for an albino deer that had been spotted in Holly Springs – a young buck, who had likely been born of another albino deer who had been seen the previous year.

Cobras and bears and deer: Oh my!

In the past few months, the Triangle area has seen everything from zebra cobras to baby bears to hybrid wolves.

A venomous zebra cobra was set loose from a home in Raleigh, making national news. The cobra's owner is now facing 40 charges related to housing snakes.

A baby bear was also found sleeping in a tree outside Rex Hospital in Raleigh.

A pack of Wolf-German Shepherd hybrids escaped from their home in Orange County, and have yet to be found.

Back in May, a white-tailed deer was seen bounding down Fayetteville Street before busting through the front door of a downtown Raleigh shop.

Famously in 2019, an emu was spotted in July running around in Orange County. Officials were not sure where it came from, though it is legal to own emus in the county.

A year before that, a runaway horse escaped from its owner in Wake Forest. In 2017, a small pig was spotted on Interstate 40 near Brier Creek was safely captured by officials.

For the safety of the albino deer, WRAL will not disclose the deer's location any more specifically than "north Raleigh."

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