SYDNEY, Dec. 17 (Xinhua) -- Nature-lovers and wildlife experts can spend a lifetime searching remote mountain regions and forests, never to catch a glimpse of an extremely rare white deer.
A highly uncommon animal, sightings of the elusive creatures are sparse.
But for locals in a suburban area of Western Sydney, an albino stag just happened to be wandering through their residential street overnight.
"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," Christina Cardillo-Zallo who was driving past at the time told News Corp on Monday evening.
"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."
Capturing the encounter on film, the incredible footage shows the white deer strolling along the side of the road far from its natural habitat.
Although the video has garnered intrigue and amazement from viewers all over the globe, New South Wales State Invasive Species Council chief executive Andrew Cox said, it's likely the animal has wandered into the suburban area of Colebee to escape the nearby bushfires in search of food.
"The bushfires would force native and feral animals to flee and the horse numbers are rapidly increasing in NSW," he said.
While deer are commonly found to the west, around Green Wattle Creek and the Nattai National Park, Cox said seeing any deer, let alone a white deer on a suburban street is "highly unusual".
"Deer population has more than doubled in the last seven years from 2009 to 2017," he said.
"(It seems) they are moving towards Sydney's outer suburbs through the bushfires."
