What are folks thoughts on the albino?

Dan Apple

Old Mossy Horns
makes no difference to the "herd".

I shot one once... wasn't the big deal I thought it would be... a 50lb deer is a 50lb deer.... the only way I'd ever shoot another is if it was a stud of a buck,,, which I'm gonna shoot anyway regardless of the color.. no racism here. ;)
 

ermiller1016

Four Pointer
Contributor
makes no difference to the "herd".

I shot one once... wasn't the big deal I thought it would be... a 50lb deer is a 50lb deer.... the only way I'd ever shoot another is if it was a stud of a buck,,, which I'm gonna shoot anyway regardless of the color.. no racism here. ;)
Haaahaa!!
 

Rubline

Twelve Pointer
I watched two different bucks breed an albino doe in VA several years ago and then watched a third buck chase her out of sight.
 

DozerD

Six Pointer
Had a chance to shoot an albino doe on Harris gl about ten years ago. I was in such awe of seeing her I never even thought to raise the gun. As Dan Apple stated, no harm to the heard. Now the gentleman that was not very far from my brother and I yelling “shoot that white bit#$” had a very different mindset than I 🤣
 

Aaron H

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
Where I live the albino gene is fairly strong. I can't say how many I've seen- lost count a long time ago. I never have shot one though I once let an arrow go on a young 8 point (if he had brow tines) but shot over him. Now I wouldn't let that arrow go. Years before an old man in the neighborhood told me of an albino buck and doe that he was seeing. In my mind I thought he had to be lying since it seemed so unbelievable. A couple of years later I saw and shot at the albino buck and saw a white doe a few days later...... a lesson to me that even when someone says something unlikely, if it's possible.... it could be true.
 

grim reaper

Ten Pointer
I've watched one since he was a button head. Cowhorn last yr and a 4 point this yr. Will never be a monster but if he ever makes it til 4.5 I'll be real tempted
 

DBCooper

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
I shot a piebald several years ago. I don’t regret it, but I wouldn’t do it again, SOLELY due to it being a piebald/albino.

I have a piebald doe running around that I could have killed numerous times. Her twin sister hasn’t been seen in a couple years. The lone survivor (of the two) is 13.5 yrs old. I saw her several times, this season.
 

CutNRun

Ten Pointer
Contributor
Strange thing this topic coming up today. I'll give fair warning, this will be a long story. On December 17, 1988 (32 years ago today) I was working at Carnivore Preservation Trust near Pittsboro and had a white deer encounter. If you've ever heard tigers or jaguars roar when you're hunting or fishing off Robeson Creek, it's not your imagination. They live in the compound off Hanks Chapel Road near the lake. Anyway, that morning we got a call from some women who lived below Pea Ridge Road who had seen a pack of feral dogs chase a white deer into Jordan Lake. The deer tried to get away from the dogs, but they'd follow it along the bank. The deer kept swimming in circles in the cold water and was getting tired. The women got an inflatable raft and paddled it out to the middle of the lake and rescued the deer. The albino doe was cold and limp, exhausted from the chase & swim. The women carried the white doe to a horse barn one of them owned, set her on some hay, and started calling around looking to help the doe.

The Wildlife people basically said: It's a wild deer, they're not endangered, let nature take its course.
Next, they called the Forestry Service, who said: We do trees, not animals. Try somebody else.
Next, they called a local veterinarian who said : We don't treat wild animals, Maybe the folks at the Cat Ranch could help you?

The director asked me and a female volunteer to ride over to assess the doe's condition and to bring her back to the compound if she could be saved. He also had me take along my Buck 110 to slit her throat (away from the women) if she was injured beyond recovery.

I found the doe on her side in a horse stall. She was extremely weak and cold. I felt her gums and close to her heart and was surprised how cold she was. I tried to stand her up, but she was stiff and didn't have good balance. When I lifted her front legs off the ground, she was able to drive with her hind legs, so I knew she didn't have a spinal injury. I figured she was just in shock and needed something to eat and to go somewhere to warm up.

When we got back to the compound I broke out my sleeping bag and brought her inside to warm up by the wood stove near the kitchen. She was still really weak & cold. I went out to the front fence and pulled down a washtub full of honeysuckle for her to eat. I also sliced up a couple of apples for her and filled a small bowl with water. I sat and hung out with her to see what she might do. If she died, I planned to feed much of her to the tigers, jaguars, and leopards. She gradually warmed up and started looking around, I'm sure wondering where she was. I tried to give her apples (she'd probably never seen one before), but when I offered her honeysuckle, she hit it like a buzz saw. Before long she stood up, but didn't move for about 15 minutes, just looked around. She walked over to me and the washtub and chowed down on more of the honeysuckle. Everyone else had either left or gone to bed, so it was just me and the white doe hanging out together. I felt her ears and side and she was warm again. She was having a hard time walking around on the tile floor, but had gotten her balance back. Around 2:30 a.m. she plopped down on the sleeping bag by the fire with her legs curled under her, so I went off to bed.

Very early the next morning (My Birthday, Dec. 18th) I could hear her hooves on the tile floor in the kitchen. When I came down the stairs, she walked right up to me like a dog might and smelled me again. I feared that once she regained her strength, she might freak out & tear up the house or try to jump through a window or something. No such thing. She calmly walked around kinda acting like she was looking for something. I ran a big bowl of water for her and she slurped down about 1/3 of it. She'd eaten every bit of the honeysuckle. As other people came into the kitchen and into the house, she started moving away from them, but she never feared me or tried to get away from me. The manager there named her Jane Doe, since nobody knew anything about her. We decided that she probably needed another day or two to regain her strength before we released her, so we turned her out inside the compound fence. It is a 12 foot high perimeter fence that encloses something like 55 acres with smaller cages that hold the Cats. I'm sure that deer didn't know what in the world to think, because as soon as she started trotting down the gravel road, every time she passed by a cage, tigers, or leopards, or caracals, or lynxes were lunging at her trying to get through their chain link fences. She went to the thickest cover away from the cats and hung out there, eating honeysuckle that probably hadn't been touched for 10 years.

Two days later, I called a buddy of mine who lives out off the Rocky River and he gave us permission to turn her loose out there. It is some very big woods out that way and he owned & leased around 400 acres of it at the time. Just like before, nobody else could get close to her, but I could walk right up to her and touch her without her acting scared. It was almost like she sensed I was trying to help her. We drove the Trooper down where she liked to hang out and corralled her. I had her laid across my lap with her front legs tied and back legs tied with belts for the ride, She didn't like being restrained, but she also didn't freak out as bad as I expected as we drove her towards her new home. We turned her out in the property owner's clover patch, but she headed down towards the river. The land owner saw her multiple times during and after that deer season, then saw a white doe with a white fawn the next Spring. There still may be some offspring in that area, though we haven't talked about it in a few years.

Even though it was just a deer, it made a connection with me and acted surprisingly calm around me. It was a cool experience and may have been the best part of my 28th birthday.

Jim
 

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HotSoup

Old Mossy Horns
Where I live the albino gene is fairly strong. I can't say how many I've seen- lost count a long time ago. I never have shot one though I once let an arrow go on a young 8 point (if he had brow tines) but shot over him. Now I wouldn't let that arrow go. Years before an old man in the neighborhood told me of an albino buck and doe that he was seeing. In my mind I thought he had to be lying since it seemed so unbelievable. A couple of years later I saw and shot at the albino buck and saw a white doe a few days later...... a lesson to me that even when someone says something unlikely, if it's possible.... it could be true.

Do you remember the black and white fawns that were caught on camera a few years ago?
 

DBCooper

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
Strange thing this topic coming up today. I'll give fair warning, this will be a long story. On December 17, 1988 (32 years ago today) I was working at Carnivore Preservation Trust near Pittsboro and had a white deer encounter. If you've ever heard tigers or jaguars roar when you're hunting or fishing off Robeson Creek, it's not your imagination. They live in the compound off Hanks Chapel Road near the lake. Anyway, that morning we got a call from some women who lived below Pea Ridge Road who had seen a pack of feral dogs chase a white deer into Jordan Lake. The deer tried to get away from the dogs, but they'd follow it along the bank. The deer kept swimming in circles in the cold water and was getting tired. The women got an inflatable raft and paddled it out to the middle of the lake and rescued the deer. The albino doe was cold and limp, exhausted from the chase & swim. The women carried the white doe to a horse barn one of them owned, set her on some hay, and started calling around looking to help the doe.

The Wildlife people basically said: It's a wild deer, they're not endangered, let nature take its course.
Next, they called the Forestry Service, who said: We do trees, not animals. Try somebody else.
Next, they called a local veterinarian who said : We don't treat wild animals, Maybe the folks at the Cat Ranch could help you?

The director asked me and a female volunteer to ride over to assess the doe's condition and to bring her back to the compound if she could be saved. He also had me take along my Buck 110 to slit her throat (away from the women) if she was injured beyond recovery.

I found the doe on her side in a horse stall. She was extremely weak and cold. I felt her gums and close to her heart and was surprised how cold she was. I tried to stand her up, but she was stiff and didn't have good balance. When I lifted her front legs off the ground, she was able to drive with her hind legs, so I knew she didn't have a spinal injury. I figured she was just in shock and needed something to eat and to go somewhere to warm up.

When we got back to the compound I broke out my sleeping bag and brought her inside to warm up by the wood stove near the kitchen. She was still really weak & cold. I went out the the front fence and pulled down a washtub full of honeysuckle for her to eat. I also sliced up a couple of apples for her and filled a small bowl with water. I sat and hung out with her to see what she might do. If she died, I planned to feed much of her to the tigers, jaguars, and leopards. She gradually warmed up and started looking around, I'm sure wondering where she was. I tried to give her apples (she'd probably never seen one before), but when I offered her honeysuckle, she hit it like a buzz saw. Before long she stood up, but didn't move for about 15 minutes, just looked around. She walked over to me and the washtub and chowed down on more of the honeysuckle. Everyone else had either left or gone to bed, so it was just me and the white doe hanging out together. I felt her ears and side and she was warm again. She was having a hard time walking around on the tile floor, but had gotten her balance back. Around 2:30 a.m. she plopped down on the sleeping bag by the fire with her legs curled under her, so I went off to bed.

Very early the next morning (My Birthday, Dec. 18th) I could hear her hooves on the tile floor in the kitchen. When I came down the stairs, she walked right up to me like a dog might and smelled me again. I feared that once she regained her strength, she might freak out & tear up the house or try to jump through a window or something. No such thing. She calmly walked around kinda acting like she was looking for something. I ran a big bowl of water for her and she slurped down about 1/3 of it. She'd eaten every bit of the honeysuckle. As other people came into the kitchen and into the house, she started moving away from them, but she never feared me or tried to get away from me. The manager there named her Jane Doe, since nobody knew anything about her. We decided that she probably needed another day or two to regain her strength before we released her, so we turned her out inside the compound fence. It is a 12 foot high perimeter fence that encloses something like 55 acres with smaller cages that hold the Cats. I'm sure that deer didn't know what in the world to think, because as soon as she started trotting down the gravel road, every time she passed by a cage, tigers, or leopards, or caracals, or lynxes were lunging at her trying to get through their chain link fences. She went to the thickest cover away from the cats and hung out there, eating honeysuckle that probably hadn't been touched for 10 years.

Two days later, I called a buddy of mine who lives out off the Rocky River and he gave us permission to turn her loose out there. It is some very big woods out that way and he owned & leased around 400 acres of it at the time. Just like before, nobody else could get close to her, but I could walk right up to her and touch her without her acting scared. It was almost like she sensed I was trying to help her. We drove the Trooper down where she liked to hang out and corralled her. I had her laid across my lap with her front legs tied and back legs tied with belts for the ride, She didn't like being restrained, but she also didn't freak out as bad as I expected as we drove her towards her new home. We turned her out in the property owner's clover patch, but she headed down towards the river. The land owner saw her multiple times during and after that deer season, then saw a white doe with a white fawn the next Spring. There still may be some offspring in that area, though we haven't talked about it in a few years.

Even though it was just a deer, it made a connection with me and acted surprisingly calm around me. It was a cool experience and may have been the best part of my 28th birthday.

Jim

The albinism gene is 1/30000. Both parents have to possess the recessive gene, THEN..... the odds are still less than .25 that an off spring will be an albino.

That’s some serious “planets aligning” :donk:donk:donk:donk, there.
 

catfishrus

Twelve Pointer
I haven't seen a albino deer but I do have a albino raccoon on my place. I had him on trail camera last year regular and seen him once this year in my driveway at night. Its kind of cool to know its here. I have no desire to shoot it.
 
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