Christopher Thurman is an avid hunter from the Ouchita Mountains of western Arkansas. When he’s not running his beagles for rabbits or chasing big Arkansas bucks, he likes to do some predator hunting on a parcel of land he manages as prime cottontail rabbit habitat. On December 10, Thurman had the predator hunt of a lifetime, bagging two bobcats during one mid-morning sit—one of which turned out to be an extremely rare albino.
“I have talked to my local biologist, and it’s the only one ever documented in Arkansas,” Thurman tells Field & Stream. “Nobody I’ve talked to has ever seen one.” Photos of the bobcat, which have since gone viral on Facebook and Instagram, show its all-white pelt speckled with light blonde spots. Thurman says that both of its eyes and its nose were pink, a marker of true genetic albinism.
“I knew the cat was on the property because I got a photo on one of my game cameras when it was a kitten,” Thurman says. “Then, toward the end of deer season this year, the neighbor told me a guy who was hunting on his land actually saw it and spooked it on opening day.”
Thurman was surprised to hear that the bobcat was alive. Given its stark white coat, he figured an owl or a hawk would have picked it off while it was young. Once he got the news that it was still on the prowl, he set out to hunt it in earnest.
“I got into my stand around 10 a.m. on the morning of December 10,” Thurman recalls. “I turned on my ‘rabbit-in-distress’ call and within 10 minutes a regular bobcat stepped out into the open.” He shot the first bobcat with a Savage rifle chambered in 7 HMR then immediately turned his predator call back on in hopes of calling in the all-white cat. In Arkansas, hunters can tag up to two bobcats per day during a season that runs from September 1 to February 29.
“Within a minute he popped out of the thicket,” Thurman says. “He crept up and started stalking the call, like they do, then he sat down behind a tree. That’s when I shot him.” The cat dropped in its tracks next to the tree, and Thurman walked up to confirm that it was the true albino he’d seen on his game camera.
“I saw that it had the pink eyes and the pink nose,” he says, “and then I saw those blonde spots. It was an amazing hunt, and getting two in one day made it even better.”
Related: North Carolina Man Bags Incredible Black Bobcat While Deer Hunting
Thurman says he was flooded with offers from taxidermists hoping to mount the rare cat after he posted it to the local Sportsmen Party Facebook page. Ultimately, he decided to go with Bishop Taxidermy out of Dover, Arkansas for a full-body mount that he hopes will showcase the cats incredible pelt. “Bishop’s the best in the state. He’s been doing taxidermy for a long time, but he’s never seen anything like this,” he says. “We’re going the have the finished mount preserved in a glass case.”
