Piebald Sighting

[mrmiller]

Originally Posted by PaulS

To my recallection a piebald is a sort of part albino. You have everything from a true albino (all white with pink eyes, nose and hooves to a true melinistic all black deer. There are those somewhere in between and those are the piebald deer. All mammels can exhibit this trait even humans. I doubt that a piebald is a result of a mating of an albino and a normal deer but it could be. Any phase of albinism or melinism is quite rare but piebalds are the most common. I have been hunting since 1955 and have never seen a true albino in the wild but have seen several piebalds. Most of these sightings were does but did see at least 2 bucks so affected.

Yes Paul you are right. It is not an Albino and a brown deer. It is simply a genetic mutation...

[olds45512]

heres some poor quality pics of an albino buck at my parents house last fall. the view was alot better thru the binoculars, it was about 100 yards away and i took the pics with a cell phone. the buck looked like it was dipped in white paint with red eyes, the white antlers looked awesome.

[PaulS]

Those buck pics could very well be of an albino. I also have read of albino bucks that are normal except for their coloration. On the other hand I have also read that they could show some abnormal charactoristics such as not losing their antlers or antlers remaining in velvet and the like.
A local attraction is Penns Cave the owners of which also operate a game preserve/sanctuary and they have six or seven true albinos. A safari like bus trip gets one really close to the wildlife albinos included.

[mmzullo]

I can get within 10 feet of this piebald I feed it. It's been around my house for 15 years. There is actually 2 running around here. My property in PA there is a piebald and true albino deer.
Also in NY by Stewart air force base there is a population of albine/piebald up there.

This is the 1 in my area. There is also 1 about 15 miles away.

[olds45512]

albino seems to be common around my parents house, thats probably the 10th albino weve seen in the last 15 years. 2 yrs ago there was an albino doe and 2 albino fawn crossing the field in the same spot as the one in the pic.

[darkminion_17]

Cool pics,
mike, does it have a name?

[Yosemite Sam]

Great deer pictures... Actually all deer pictures are great, unless they are green...

[zippy1]

Pat Reeve, (hunting show guy) documented about a buck in Buffalo county years back. I think that one lived over 7 or 8 years until they happened upon it and was in very poor health, deaths door.
So instead of letting the local coyote clan finish it they called in the WIDNR to put it down. They had it mounted and put on display at a local high school.
Now it's in Cabela's store in Green Bay.
But according to a wild life biologist, it's almost unheard of for a wild albino to live very long because they have so much going against them being white. The biggest thing is concealment from predators. Can you imagine trying to hide in a forest of green?
There were some other things also, something to do with their eyes being pink they don't reflect the brightness of the sun and end up going blind. It's been a long time since I saw the documentary, so I'm lucky I remembered that much.
Anyway, very cool pictures guys.

[PaulS]

You are correct, a white deer cannot hide from predators very well unless there is snow on the ground. I have read about normal colored deer chasing the piebald or albino away and the writer claimed that the normal deer instinctively know the off colored will draw attention to them. Don't know how true that is but that is what was claimed. Most of the piebald deer I have seen were with normal colored ones. The albinos in the Penns Cave preserve hang out with normal colored ones too but then they are in a high fence area.