Rare white deer spotted walking the streets of Marsden Park
Motorists were shocked to see a rare white deer trotting along the streets of Marsden Park. WATCH NOW.
NSW
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Residents in Sydney’s west had a very rare visitor overnight — an albino deer trotting through a residential street.
The white stag was spotted by motorists on Alderton Street in Colebee about 1am.
Woodcroft resident Christina Cardillo-Zallo was driving home from a wedding when she spotted the animal.
“I looked out the window and saw a white big dog-like animal and I thought it was a big Labrador but as I looked closer it was trying to go through the fence and was bright white and had antlers,” she told The Daily Telegraph.
“We followed it and it was frantically trying to get through a fenced off area. It was huge, like the size of a Great Dane.”
Invasive Species Council chief executive Andrew Cox said to see the rare white stag running along a residential street was “highly unusual”
“The bushfires would force native and feral animals to flee and the horse numbers are rapidly increasing in NSW,” Mr Cox said.
He said that deer in NSW are common in the Nattai National Park and the Green Wattle Creek had likely pushed the animal out to urban areas.
“Deer population has more than doubled in the last seven years 2009-2017. They are moving towards sydney’s outer suburbs through the bushfires,” he said.
Increasingly there will be encounters of deer in residential areas.
“There are already in Nattai and the animals will be fleeing. There are deer in Nattai national park and Burragorang, Warragamba Dam catchments.”
WIRES Wildlife Rescue NSW said they had received 106 calls this year about deer sightings across the state but the animal is not native to Australia and cannot be rescued by the organisation.
“They are very timid so you don’t really get to see them. With the drought going on they are probably coming out to find food like a lot of animals,” a spokesman said.