PRINCE RUPERT, B.C. — A deer with part of a purple hammock laced around his antlers has inspired a Facebook page, popular line of T-shirts and tremendous public interest in a northern British Columbia city.
But the buck's bonnet won't last much longer.
Hammy, as he has been dubbed, rose to notoriety during the summer when he got stuck in a backyard hammock in Prince Rupert.
RCMP officers freed him but Hammy raced away before the hammock fringe could be tugged off his head.
Since then, a Facebook page allows Prince Rupert residents to track sightings of him, while a local entrepreneur created a line of T-shirts that almost instantly sold out depicting Hammy and his haute couture headgear.
The fringe isn't harming the buck or preventing him from feeding.
Residents say Hammy even seems to be the leader of a small group of deer that roam the city.
But male deer shed their antlers annually, so Hammy will lose his showy chapeau within the next few months.
Frances Riley says she has seen Hammy and he appears to celebrate his purple plumage.
"He was cruising around with a pack of other bucks. There were about six of them and they'd stop and they'd fight every once in awhile and Hammy was leading the parade," Riley says.
"He seemed to be the leader of their little crew."
Riley says the fringe doesn't appear to slow Hammy down but she hopes this leads to a conversation about how humans and wildlife interact.
In the meantime, she says he brightens people's days.
"It's just kind of fun. He's just kind of cool. You see him and its like, 'oh, right on, there's Hammy.' "
