Interesting deer pic

[Smoking Duck]

A friend sent me a pic of this buck.  Rumor has it that Cabelas purchased the head and hide for $13K.  Not sure if that's true or not but it is a pretty cool looking deer.

[pensrock]

That is a cool looking buck.

[josbocc]

Great Buck,

If it weren't for the rack, it resembles a cow on one of the local farms up here.

[3rensho]

My thought too.  Bet you could milk that sucker.

[NePaSmoKer]

Wonder if that was shot in Junction Texas?


nepas

[Caribou]

It's a pinto!

Made me go through my emails to find this pic.

I'm guessing they're on an elk farm, wild ones would let you get that close...except in Yellowstone. ;)
CArolyn

[smokeitall]

Hey SD I heard that deer was shot up in Wisconsin.

[Smoking Duck]

Could be, SIA.  I just received the picture and the note saying the guy sold it to Cabelas.  Never heard where it was shot.

[smokeitall]

Could be, SIA.  I just received the picture and the note saying the guy sold it to Cabelas.  Never heard where it was shot.

I just looked up the email I got back in Jan.  I have three pics, the one you have is one of the three.  It says that the calico deer went for $13,000 to Cabelas for the head and hide and that it is more rare than an albino buck ,and it was shot in Wisconsin.

[IKnowWood]

Is it rare because of the mix pattern, not an all white? 

There is one like that around my area, an older one and some with less white.  The mixed one is whiter on center and not on the head as much.  When it was younger it had more white on it.

[pensrock]

When I was a kid there was a doe that looked like that in the area where we hunt. I remember dad telling us not to shoot her. I remember seeing her for several years. I guess she must have passed on with old age. It was cool seeing her each year.

[easyridinole]

I recieved an email with a couple pictures of this same deer also saying it was shot in Wisconsin. Being that I am from Wisconsin I never heard any more about it. Never sure what to believe on the internet anymore except the great pictures on this forum!!  ;D

Ole

[Caneyscud]

My great uncle (game biologist for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department) told me about piebald deer one time long ago after seeing one at my aunt's ranch near Bandera, TX.  Seems they are rare, but not as rare as albino.  They tend to occur more often in overpopulated areas (which this ranch was) and are a product of recessive gene traits.  The first one we saw on the ranch we thought was an albino at first - a doe that was all white except for the brown ears.  Others were more pinto looking.  He did a small study on them - he wanted to find out if they might be a result of the white tails inter-breeding with exotics, especially the roe deer.  This was an area with a lot of exotic game ranches and we had seen a number of exotics, especially roe deer on this ranch.  He had been somewhat studying this ranch and it's deer for about 25 years at the time, and had not seen any piebald up till then.  His main study at the time was antler development, and he had also noted a different look to the antlers of a couple of piebald bucks he had seen in the general area.  Study was inconclusive - but could find no evidence of inter-breeding other than the antlers looking somewhat like a roe deer rack.  This was time before DNA testing. 

[Smoking Duck]

There are very few true "albino" deer out there.  Many times, folks will see a white deer and assume it's albino but it has normally colored noses, hooves and eyes.  The white hair is simply a genetic mutation for hair only but they seem to get lumped into the category of albinos.  True albinoism only occurs at a rate of about 1 in 30,000 deer.  Some will say more, some will say less but I stick with the median which is about 1 in 30,000.  I don't believe that overpopulation is a cause of genetic strains dealing with hair color but I do believe that overpopulation will cause a lot of other things.

After some more research, it appears that this deer may have been harvested somewhere in East Texas, but there are reports of piebalds and white deer all over the country.  Of course, one doesn't see that many true albinos (in fact, after studying them for 4 years in college and over 30 years of hunting them, I don't believe I've ever seen an albino in the wild.  They usually don't last that long because of lack of camoflague and poor eyesight, which is probably why they don't get seen very often.  They do however, make for some interesting conversation and some beautiful taxidermy work.