Albino Whitetail Deer - Ghosts of the Forest

The Albino Buck Video - the odds of seeing an adult albino white tail buck in the wild is better than 1 in 1,000,000!

filmed Oct 2001

As of October 2001: This rare animal is was alive and well and living in northern Wisconsin near a well stocked bait pile. We will not publish it's location on this website since some greed stricken FIB out there will immediately pack his bags and head up to shoot it for his trophy room.
Albino deer are protected by law in Wisconsin.

To access the new cellular poaching hotline number, U.S. Cellular subscribers need only dial the "#" key, followed by "DNR" (#367). The regular toll-free number to report poachers and other violators is 1-800-TIP-WDNR (1-800-847-9367).

UPDATE: Sadly, a few years later this deer was hit by a car driven by, you guessed it, an Illinois driver. The deer was subsequently stuffed & placed on local display.

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See this video about Albino Deer in Wisconsin.
courtesy of PBS InWisconsin televison program.

More on Albino Whitetail Deer:

The Florence Wild Rivers Interpretive Center is located within the Florence Natural Resources Center Building at the corner of US 2 and Highway 70/101 in Florence, WI.
An excellent example of the educational exhibits in the Interpretive Center is the albino buck. A 7 1/2 year old true albino whitewall buck like the one on display at the Florence Wild Rivers Interpretive Center is extremely rare. Few deer live out their potential life span of 11 or 12 years. Very few bucks even reach their prime of 4 1/2 years. A true albino occurs in about one of 100,000 births and very few survive beyond the first year of life. For an albino to live over seven years is extremely unusual. This albino whitetail buck that was seen near Florence between 1987 and the fall of 1992 and was killed on the last day of the 1992 deer/gun hunting season is a one in a million occurrence. All cases of true albinism are due to the lack of pigmentation in the hair, skin, and, in the case of deer, the iris of the eyes, pink or blue, and the hoofs a pale gray. This particular buck because of his unusual age weighed 225 pounds and had an eight point rack with a 22 inch spread, making it among the larger deer killed in the 1992 gun season. Since all white deer are protected in Wisconsin, the shooting of this albino was illegal. Recognizing the rarity of this whitetail as a biological specimen and the importance of this animal to the people of Florence, the conservation warden immediately took it to North Star Taxidermy to be properly preserved. He then contacted the agency heads at the Florence Natural Resources Center to determine if they would find it a home in the Interpretive Center. On November 6, 1993, at the Wild Rivers Interpretive Center the full seven foot mount was unveiled to the public where it can still be viewed today.

A lore of the Chickasaw People of Oklahoma

A brave, young warrior for the Chickasaw Nation fell in love with the daughter of a chief. The chief did not like the young man, who was called Blue Jay. So the chief invented a price for the bride that he was sure that Blue Jay could not pay.

" Bring me the hide of the White Deer, : said the chief. The Chickasaws believed that animals that were all white were magical. "The price for my daughter is one white deer." Then the chief laughed. The chief knew that an all white deer, an albino, was very rare and would be very hard to find. White deerskin was the best material to use in a wedding dress, and the best white deer skin came from the albino deer.

Blue Jay went to his beloved, whose name was Bright Moon. "I will return with your bride price in one moon, and we will be married. This I promise you." Taking his best bow and his sharpest arrows Blue Jay began to hunt.

Three weeks went by, and Blue Jay was often hungry, lonely, and scratched by briars. Then, one night during a full moon, Blue Jay saw a white deer that seemed to drift through the moonlight. When the deer was very close to where Blue Jay hid, he shot his sharpest arrow. The arrow sank deep into the deers heart. But instead of sinking to his knees to die, the deer began to run. And instead of running away, the deer began to run toward Blue Jay, his red eyes glowing, his horns sharp and menacing.

A month passed and Blue Jay did not return as he had promised Bright Moon. As the months dragged by, the tribe decided that he would never return.

But Bright Moon never took any other young man as a husband, for she had a secret. When the moon was shinning as brightly as her name, Bright Moon would often see the white deer in the smoke of the campfire, running, with an arrow in his heart. She lived hoping the deer would finally fall, and Blue Jay would return.

To this day the white deer is sacred to the Chickasaw People, and the white deerskin is still the favorite material for the wedding dress.

The odds of seeing three albino deer at once are one in 79 billion, yet one man defied the odds and got a picture of three albino deer in the woods in Boulder Junction, Wisconsin.

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