I have a taxidermy friend who has had this doe hanging around his propery the last few years. It started out with just a white spot on the top of its back. This spring its face was white too. Now this fall with its winter coat it is half white over the rest of its body. In addition to that its nose is beginning to get fleshy colored spots on it. It comes right up to his house and has two normal looking fawns with it. He has been taking close up pictures of and just turned in some new film today which i will see real soon. He has gone to the DNR and talked to some game official who says he has never seen or heard of anything like it and wants the pictures of it. The DNR official wants to talk to a speicialist about it but they are all so tied up now with this CWD that it is hard to get answers. In addition to this story a few other people have been seeing a black doe (melanistic}. This is all happening in northern wisconsin (Butternut). Thought you might be interested and have some input. If i ever find out anything more i will keep you posted.
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skullery;
Trust me the deer isn't turning into an albino. The deer is called a piedbald. Which means having two colors. like a magpie. And changing it's coats, during the coarse of the year is normal. Actually the older the deer gets the more white it usually gets. And to be a true albino, it has to have pink eyes, and be all white. True there are some animals that are all white, and are not albino's. They have White alligators and they have blue eyes. And believe it or not, they are albino too. But that is a very rare case. Most fawns have blue eye when their born, as do lot of new born animals. But they change with age, to there normal brown color, or what ever color eyes there going to have. They also have a white color squirrel. But the eyes are dark and they are not an albino.
Coyote
We have many piebalds in this area of western NY state. NY is also home to one of the largest wild herds of all white deer as well. To answer the original question, I would have said no, they dont get whiter with age...but, now Ill say this. I still dont think they get progressively whiter with age, but I have a buck in my pen that always had white "socks", hes now two years old and has white blotches on the top of his rump. They werent there last season. Looks like someone spilled white paint across him. I know many folks who raise white deer and also piebalds, and have seen the fawns, which already show the odd color patterns. Ive also owned antlers and have mounted antlers in velvet from piebalds, they too had white patterns on the velvet.
thats some cool stuff man.very cool.i'd love to have piebald mulies around here.htat'd be great.
critters turning albino - but its really rare. For some reason the dominant gene controlling pigmentation turns off and the pigmentation is absorbed and the melanin dissiaptes. Eyes start to lose colour etc. One of my professors was telling me about that a few years ago - pretty cool stuff =) Tell your friend to watch the eyes - that as mentionned is the tell tale sign. The pink is actually blood vessels reflecting through the eye since there is no pigment there to hide them. If it has pink eyes - its albino. If it has white fur with dark eyes - its simply hypomelanistic and lacking melanin =)