A rare sight: Young piebald deer spotted in southern Maine
CUMBERLAND, Maine —
A rare piebald deer, also known as a leucistic deer, was spotted in Cumberland on Thursday.
Alison Cushing shared video with Maine’s Total Coverage of the deer in her backyard. The deer appeared to be young, with spots still visible within the brown fur on its back. Another deer with it in Cushing’s yard also appeared to be a fawn.
In April, retired Maine’s Total Coverage photojournalist Kevyn Fowler shared video of another piebald deer in southern Maine.
Piebaldism is a rare genetic condition that gives the deer small to large patches of white hair mixed in randomly with normal brown hair color. Some piebald deer have only a few outward signs of the condition, such as small patches of white hair. Others might be mostly white, like the ones spotted by Cushing and Fowler.
The mutation causes random patches of skin to lack the specialized pigment cells that give deer hair its color. Even the skin beneath the white hair lacks color. This is different from albinism, where the animal has the pigment cells, but, due to a missing gene, these cells fail to produce color, so the entire animal is white. While albino deer have pink eyes due to the complete lack of pigment, piebald deer eyes are normal in color.
A piebald deer was also captured on camera in Windham last year.
Some of the genes that cause these changes in coat color also control other physical traits, and some piebald deer are born with skeletal deformities from mild to severe. Deer born with milder symptoms of this rare condition often live normal lives. Others might be mostly white with noticeable problems like dwarfism or arched spines.
Piebaldism is a recessive genetic trait and both parents must carry the recessive gene for there to be a chance that they will produce piebald fawns.
“Piebaldism reportedly affects less than 1% of white-tailed deer populations, although this may vary regionally due to differing hunting restrictions on deer affected by the piebald trait,” said Melanie Kunkel and Dr. Nicole Nemeth in a report for the Southeast Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study. “In one population, prevalence reached nearly 2% following temporary hunting restrictions.”
Across the whitetail’s range, around one in 1,000 deer is piebald, while an estimated one in 30,000 may be albino, and even fewer are melanistic.