Talk about an incredible day wandering around the woods. Seeing something like an all-white deer can truly be a once-in-a-lifetime thing, but to see one that is a newborn, fresh out of the womb… even rarer.
Albino and leucistic deer are unique and super rare. Albino deer are ones that lack melanin, causing them to be all white. It is a genetic condition that happens in about 1 in 20,000 deer in Wisconsin. On the other hand, leucistic deer lack some melanin, but not all of it. The difference is that albino deer will generally have pink noses and hooves, as well as red eyes, where leucistic deer may just have white fur. Despite this genetic malfunction, in some areas they are protected and illegal to hunt. Some even argue that it is bad luck to shoot one.
Wisconsin is one of the best places to see these white deer and have laws enacted that help them survive. It is illegal to hunt white deer, however piebald deer (ones with a mixture of both regular brown fur as well as white) are legal to hunt.
This Wisconsin mushroom hunter came across one a few years back while out looking for some morel mushrooms. The video shows him approaching a deer fawn, but not just any old fawn, a newborn, all-white beauty of a fawn. The all-white deer comes up close and checks him out before stumbling around as the dog investigates.
“My puppy and I were walking through the woods for about two and a half hours on Mother’s Day looking for morel mushrooms. When at the last hundred yards of our hike we found one morel mushroom. After finding the mushroom I stood up turning around and looked down the slope we were on and at about 20 yards their standing in the sunlight was this little amazing ball of white!
So we slowly walked around the thicket the young deer was in and I got my phone out. On our adventure that day we saw multiple deer along with a couple adult white/albino deer. This property has seven adult white/albino deer. Before we got to the mushroom tree, we did notice one of the white deer run from the area the fawn was in. I’m assuming it was the mother to this one.
I could hear her in the woods just on top of the hill as we were watching her baby. I have been an outdoor enthusiast my whole life and have never come across something so amazing!”
That is one for the books… it almost doesn’t even look real:
