RIP Moby Dink

A little white fawn who captured the hearts of many has died, according to Canyon Lake resident and nature photographer Jane Sharp.

In early December, a neighbor noticed the baby white-tail deer lying next to his porch, close to her mother and twin. He left food and water. Several hours later, “Moby Dink,” as she was affectionately known, had passed.

“He buried her so the vultures or other predators could not get at her little body,” Sharp says. “She was always a joy to watch and made people happy when they saw her. I really miss seeing her following her mama and twin wandering around the neighborhood.”

According to DeerandDeerHunting.com, albino deer are rare — only one in 35,986 deer are born with the genetic condition. But while not all white deer are albinos, and there is no such thing as a “partial albino.” True albinos have pink or blue eyes and white hooves.

Moby Dink’s real genetic status may never be known, but her absence is keenly felt even in a community where deer are almost as common as mosquitoes.

A Little Lamb

Sharp says she first learned of Moby Dink in May, when a neighbor mentioned she’d seen a white fawn in the area.

“So I started looking for it, with no luck,” she says. “A few days later, I thought I saw a lamb lying down next to a tree stump. When I looked closer, it was the little white fawn. After a while, she got up and walked over to another normally colored fawn, who turned out to be her twin.

“They trotted into the trees, and I saw their mama lying in the tall grass, keeping an eye on them. I spent a lot of time hunting for her, but not quite as obsessively as Captain Ahab hunted for Moby Dick. My neighbor, Greg Brannan, and I used to text each other whenever we spotted her so we could try to get some good photos of her.

“We checked with some people who knew about taking care of deer and learned that albinos and lightly-colored or leucistic animals frequently have health issues, like kidney or liver problems, immune-system problems, and many of them do not survive into adulthood.

“We kind of watched over her, to make sure the other deer were not being mean to her, and to make sure she was eating. She and her twin really liked the high-protein deer pellets from The Hitching Post. If we would have thought she was in any danger, or was not well, we would have taken her to the Kendalia Wildlife Rescue Center.”