Moby Doe

The Saga of the Great White Mule Deer

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Call me Ishmael, or Steve, or whatever, or don’t call me at all. Anyway, back on January 15, 2010, my wife and I were at a New Year’s Eve party with some friends. Yes, I realize it wasn’t really New Year’s Eve, but everyone was busy, or out of town on the real New Year’s Eve, so we decided to do it 2 weeks late. I’ve pretty much been 2 weeks behind lately anyway, but I did keep this year’s New Year’s Resolutions longer than usual. At this party, a friend of ours, Mark, mentioned that he had seen a white mule deer in the foothills behind his subdivision in the past month. I had heard rumors of a set of white twins born in that area a couple years ago. Every once in awhile someone would see one wintering in the area, but the other had disappeared. Mark went on to describe the deer as being bright white, like a Mountain Goat, not the grayish white in my mind. Leon, another friend behind by 2 weeks, said he didn’t believe there was such a thing. It got me to thinking.


I awoke the next day to cold, overcast skies and a slight wind from the west. It happened to be Saturday, and one of my New Year’s resolutions was to get more exercise and to see if there was any truth to this urban legend of white mule deer. Walking from my house with my camera and my dog Queequeg, we headed for the foothills north of town. Queequeg (actually her name’s Ruby, but Queequeg works better for this day’s quest), and I climbed the hills through the subdivisions and came to the end of the pavement. There was nothing but oceans of sage and bitterbrush ahead of us. We sailed across the ridgeline at a steady pace and I watched the ridges and canyons for deer. There were patches of old snow on the north sides of the hills and bushes. I kept my eyes on them also. We had journeyed all of 15 minutes when I saw another patch of snow in the bitterbrush out on the steep end of a finger ridge. I kept watching it as we walked on the trail above. After a minute or two, it looked like this patch of snow had moved. I stopped and pulled out my binoculars for a better look. Through my binoculars I could see a pure white doe with 3 other normal colored mule deer. I couldn’t believe it. I almost yelled out, “Thar She Blows”, but I had seen some other hikers on the trail. From where these deer were at, it looked like I could cross the top of the ridge they were on to get downwind. I could then go down the backside of the ridge and come over the top just above them. I put Queequeg on her leash and pulled the camera out of my pack and made sure it worked. The hike down was quick and well hidden, but was a bit noisy working through the brush with a dog. I got to the point where I thought the deer were directly over the ridge from me. In stealth mode, I worked my way to the top and part way down the other side. No deer. I must have spooked them. I took a few more steps and the 4 deer were right in front of me and they began to run slowly. I grabbed my harpoon, pointed it at the deer and started clicking, as Queequeg jerked at my arm. The deer stopped and looked back before ambling on. I let them go, rather than scare them and make them run hard. We climbed back to the top of the ridge and followed some other trails back home.

This is a good example of 'stotting'. Mule deer hop on all fours at times.









A few days later, I sent some of these pictures to friends and relatives. I got a mixed response. Some people were amazed, while others called ‘Photoshopped’. Meaning they weren’t convinced the pictures were real. I also got some kangaroo and rabbit comments about the first picture.

My brother-in-law, Captain Ahab, is an avid hunter, fisherman, hiker, and an adventurous kind of guy. He was intrigued, and wanted to see this spectacle for himself. So I told Captain Ahab, where he could go. Actually, his name is Bill, but I must keep to the story line. Bill spent the next windy afternoon hiking in the indicated area. He saw 75 to 100 deer, none of which were white. After talking to him about his hike, we planned a joint venture the following morning to continue the search.

Bill picked me up in the morning and we sailed up the subdivision hills in his vessel he called Starbuck. It’s really a BMW, but the name fits the storyline. Starbuck was one of the whaling ships under Captain Ahab’s command. And, this same Starbuck ship is the inspiration for the name of the Starbuck's Coffee chain. But I digress. Bill and I parked at the end of the pavement and began walking into the waves of brush covered hills. We hiked about 10 minutes and to our astonishment, the first thing we saw was ‘Elvis’. I talked to Elvis’s owner for a few minutes as Elvis ran back and forth in the weeds. Elvis is a very unique looking black collie, and I have seen him in the hills on occasion. His owner left us with an “Elvis has left the building” salutation. Shortly after Elvis left the building, I looked out on the north end of the finger ridges and spotted our white deer. It was no more than 150 yards away. We watched for a moment and saw that there were 15 to 20 other deer milling around. The only way to get closer was to stalk her from the east. We worked down the outside of the ridge, out of sight of the white doe, but we bumped into some other muleys. We avoided these by rounding the end of the ridge rather than crossing over the top. As we came around the steep end, the white deer was coming towards us. We stopped and took photos and watched 15 deer mosey away to the southwest.















After the deer crossed to the other side of the canyon, we felt we should move away as not to startle them any further. We walked away to the north east for 30 minutes, checking out some new trails. We then crossed the summit into the next drainage. We were about a mile from where we had last seen the albino deer. Bill was talking about how he had been hunting and hiking for more than 35 years and had never seen a white deer before. I mentioned that the Idaho Dept. of Fish & Game knew that there were a few around, but the birthrate was around one in 800,000. As we rounded a hill and headed into the next canyon, Bill said, “That’s the first albino mule deer I’ve seen in my life, and I’ll probably never see another one”. He stopped and stared straight ahead, and then added, “except that one, right there”. As we had entered the small canyon, there was another white deer directly in front of us lying in the shadows of the hill. It was with another normal doe and they did not seem too concerned to see us.

There are still two white deer in the Boise foothills.

The second white doe