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White Deer


Wyoma

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Nice catch with the video. :)
 

When I was in 10th grade in ‘75 we were working on a farm in Greene County PA. We were repairing a barn wall. I spotted an albino buck on a hillside about 300 yards away. There was snow on the ground and the only reason I spotted him is became silhouetted in front of a vine covered cluster of bushes or small trees.  He stood out like a sore thumb. Then as he moved off he disappeared again in the snow. 
It was deer season. I started to tell my Dad and the others guys working with us but decided against it. 
Word of an oddity in the deer hunting world of southwestern PA spreads faster than the internet. 
That was the first day on that farm. We were there an additional 2 days and I kept looking for him but didn’t see him again. Deer season was to be over the day after we completed work. 
Unbeknownst to me there were guys looking high and low for that deer. 
I told my Dad about the deer the day the season was over. He was a pretty PO’d at me, but I didn’t care. 
I left PA in May of 1979. That albino was spotted a couple of times between the time I saw him and when I left. I don’t think anyone ever shot him or that would have made the local newspapers.

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Actually saw about half a dozen when I lived in Connecticut. All had at least one brown spot on it. They call them "Pi Bald". 

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When I first saw him the mom wasn't in view.  I thought it was a goat.  That was about three weeks ago and he had more spots.  He's exact reverse color - brown where he's supposed to be white and white where he should be brown.  His tail is the way it should be - white with black fringe.  I don't think he's albino.  He has big brown deer eyes.

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I read about a girl one time, that had a lot of freckles. She said that she always hoped that they would grow together and make her look like she had a suntan.

 

That's what happened with that fawn. Fawns are brown with white spots, and all them white spots growed together. :) Got a moon tan.

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Albino deer are rare, but they do get reported with some regularity.  In CA, our wildlife officers report them (as an odity) almost every year.  

 

There are very few wild animals that have not been reported and photographed in the rare double-recessive gene condition that produces albino and piebald individuals.  During my 42 year career, I saw albino squirrels, hawks, ducks, geese, coyotes, wolverines, deer, an amazing  pure white mountain lion and a half-white black bear. 

 

That doe in your video carries an unexpressed, recessive gene that prevents development of normal pigments.  She is heterozygous with the albino gene paired in her chromosomes to a dominating normal pigmented gene. So she does not express the albino trait herself.  But it will be physically expressed one half of her offspring.

 

She apparently met up with a buck with the same genetic mix.  Based on Mendalian genetics, one out of four of their offspring will express the pigment-less albino phenotype.  Two others will carry the albino gene but not express the trait, and one will have the normal pigmented genome.  

 

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I live in Virginia and we are fortunate. We have seen at least one albino deer in our back yard every year. This year it a piebald. Very unique. 
 

Sam Sackett 

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