Rare animal in Vienna

Why hunters in the Lobau fear this fallow deer

No new moose alarm, but always a special feature: the white fallow deer in the Lobau(Bild: Lobauinfo/Robert Eichert)

The sighting of a moose in Vienna may have been a false alarm, but this special wild animal in the Lobau is very real: a white fallow deer has been roaming the countryside there for years, causing amazement - and scaring many a hunter.

"Moose discovered by residents in the area of the Panozzalacken-Weg". The excitement over an alleged moose sighting in the Lobau was huge recently. In the end, however, the report turned out to be false. Nevertheless, very special animals live in this natural paradise. Such as a white fallow deer, which was first spotted in 2022, three years ago.

Legend predicts disaster within a year
"Yes, it's really there. Hopefully still there!" says Robert Eichert and the Lobauinfo website. Compared to other hoofed animals, color anomalies are somewhat more common in fallow deer, but they are still rare and more likely to be found in zoos, as they are deliberately shot in the wild - but not by those hunters who know traditions and are perhaps a little superstitious.

Until the Danube was regulated in 1875, the Lobau was a hunting ground reserved exclusively for the imperial family.(Bild: APA/Willfried Gredler-Oxenbauer)

To catch sight of the rare white stag, you need one thing above all: luck. Nevertheless, many hunters are still convinced that shooting a white deer means the death of themselves or a family member within a year. A few years ago, when a large population of white fallow deer gathered in northern Hesse in Germany and shooting permits were issued, not a single hunter was willing to hunt them.

Tradition for centuries
Many hunters who spare white deer are simply concerned with tradition. Even in a depiction of the legend of St. Hubertus - the patron saint of hunting - from 1459, the stag in whose antlers a cross appears, leading to the conversion of the previously immoderate hunter and good-for-nothing is white.

The Habsburg Archduke Franz Ferdinand apparently thought little of tradition and superstition. He was an enthusiastic hunter, including in the Lobau region, and on August 27, 1913, despite warnings from his hunting colleagues, he shot a white chamois in Salzburg's Tennengau region, which is still on display in the local House of Nature. On June 28, 1914, he fell victim to an assassination attempt in Sarajevo (Bosnia-Herzegovina).