This isn’t something you’d ever expect to see while taking your dog on a walk.
According to Newsweek, a woman named Amy was out walking her dog on Wednesday when she came across an all-white deer.
She told the outlet:
“I was walking my dog Chewy around 5 p.m. (local time) last night when we came across this albino deer.”
Amy shared the wild scene of the deer standing by some trees while staring right at the camera on Reddit, where it instantly went viral.
She continued:
“We were both in awe of its majestic beauty. We see a ton of deer and even feed some in our backyard, but I never imagined we would see this.”
Albinism is a genetic mutation that results total lack of pigment, whereas the more common leucism is only a partial loss of pigment and can result in all white deer or even white and brown deer known as “piebalds.” Because albinism includes a complete lack of melanin, the animal will have white skin, hair, feathers, etc… along with white or red eyes and a pink nose. Leucistic creatures typically have white fur or skin, but their eyes, nose, and feet typically have normal colors.
Most sources estimate that 1 in 20,000 deer are leucistic. That’s not a whole lot over a large area with good deer habitat, and full albinos are even rarer.
Needless to say, I hope this woman went straight to the gas station and bought herself a lottery ticket after this sighting, because this is something the majority of people on this planet will never witness in their lifetime.
