Look what PETA does!(pay no attention to the model on the right,...)
Posted on 11/20/2011 5:26:58 PM PST by afraidfortherepublic
Amy Mattson of Mequon was driving south of Port Washington earlier this month when she spied an all-white buck standing in a field.
The nose of the 6-point buck appears to be pink in the photos that she and a friend shot.
A pink nose and presumably pink eyes - a deer bereft of any color - means the two appeared to be observing a rare albino deer, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.
"It was very pretty," Mattson said Saturday, the first day of Wisconsin's traditional nine-day gun season.
In the dim light of late afternoon, "it almost looked like an angel or something," she recalled.
"I can't imagine why anyone would want to shoot it."
In fact, albino deer, and another type of white deer with a black nose and colored eyes, can't be shot, according Davin Lopez, a DNR biologist.
The exception is in the state's chronic wasting disease zones, where the DNR wants to reduce deer populations.
Lopez said that albino deer are the rarer of the two, but both are uncommon.
A story in Outdoor Life last year by writer Travis Faulkner says the chances of an albino deer born in the wild is 1 in 20,000.
Faulkner said these "mystical ghosts of the woods" were even documented in journal entries by European explorers in present-day Wisconsin.
White deer are sometimes known to live in pockets, since the genetic trait is passed down.
The closest such pocket in metropolitan Milwaukee is in the Dousman area, Lopez said. Faulkner describes a large group living near Boulder Junction, which has been chronicled in a book, "White Deer: Ghosts of the Forest."
On Nov. 14, Mattson was with her sister, Emily Mueller, 13, of Grafton.
They were returning from a Big Brothers/Big Sisters holiday party in Port Washington when the pair spied the white buck on Sauk Road near the intersection of Highway 32, on the border of Port Washington and the Town of Grafton.
Mueller took a picture with Mattson's camera from the car. Then, Mattson, 27, a nurse, shot more photos outside of the car.
The deer appeared to be almost tame, she said. She whistled once. Like a pet dog, it looked up.
Lopez said the DNR hasn't had any significant problem with poachers shooting the deer as a trophy.
As for the deer, the white coat isn't necessarily a blessing. It leaves them more vulnerable to predation, especially as a fawn, because it can't blend in to its surroundings.
Venison in a fancy package.
“I’ll bet he’ll be tasty too.”
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You sound like the typical poachers that I had to chase
off my farm, and call the game warden on every year. :P
They’re all meat inside.
>>Venison in a fancy package.<<
Worst smell I ever encountered was deer baloney. OTOH it was weird tasting but not bad.
Beautiful animal. Wasn’t it a white stag that the elves chased through Mirkwood? ;o)
Might be for down there, but up here it aint good. At least it has not started out good.
The wolves have done their job.
Went up to one of my old places that I have not hunted since 88. Not much for sign. Used to see several deer in a day up there and good sign all over. I walked the whole four sections and never saw so much as a flag.
Up here if you want to see deer, get near town.
They dont know that albino deer is not unusual.
There are white deer all over the woods here in the Finger Lakes, and they are not albinos...they are simply white. Most of them are within the confines of the old Seneca Army Depot. Here they can be shot like any other deer, in fact, a friend has a doe mounted in a glass case in his living room.
They are protected in WI. Killing one would bring a severe penalty, like losing your license forever.
White Hart and all that stuff... return of the king? ... Reagan?
There are several colonies of them (albinos) in WI. I’ve never heard of them in Port Washington, however.
There were more than 1000 reported at just the reporting station in Jerome and Brooklyn in the first 48 hours.
Isn’t there some old Indian legend or Nostradamus story about the end of days when a great white deer appears and crazy people occupy a street called “Wall”????
Albinism is anti-black. Into the ovens with them....
It would make a fine white leather smoking jacket....
Pro-ba-blee. It’d make a good story, if nothing else.
Look what PETA does!(pay no attention to the model on the right,...)
these are the kind we have around here... they are not albinos, they are white deer 
Cool...natural winter camo. Not so good in the summer, though.
I was up at the University of Louisville library last week and was amazed by the number of albino squirrels running around. It was hard to get an accurate count, but I know there were at least ten.
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