Big Piebald Whitetail Buck

I received these pictures in my email with no story attached, but they are pretty cool. I’ve never seen a piebald myself, but I once saw an albino whitetail doe in Northern Idaho.

Many folks feel that albinos and piebalds should be protected from hunting. I think they make a great trophy, plus by harvesting them, we get inferior animals out of the population. Biologists say that protecting albinos, piebald and melanistic deer from hunting would have no biological impact and probably would not result in an increase of these traits. What do you think?

What is a Piebald?
A piebald is an animal that has a spotting pattern of large asymmetrical white and black or brown patches. A genetic variation (defect) produces the piebald condition in whitetail deer, not parasites or diseases. In addition to the odd coloration, many individuals have some of the following observable conditions: bowing of the nose (Roman nose), short legs, arching spine (Scoliosis), and short lower jaws. This genetic condition is rare with typically less than one percent of all whitetails being affected.

Melanistic: Melanistic deer are very dark sometimes even black. Melanism results from overproduction of pigment and is less common than albinism. Hunters see dark deer with some frequency but to actually see a Melanistic deer is rare.