A mate shot this Whitetail here in New Zealand

In the states we call that a piebald deer. I have no idea how common it is.

I have seen them in Ga and Florida but on rare occassions. Looks more like a birth defect in the skin pigmentation more than anything else.

James, did he think it was a goat?

Michael Jackson Disease.

It is a piebald. A normal but not so common variant. More found in the southern US than anywhere else.

That's what happens when you take a North American deer, ship him 10,000 miles from home, and a stand him upside down.

There used to be a whole herd of them only as Mule deer behind Ellensburg WA. I saw them one time when hunting and was with a young man when he shot a yearling that was over half white.

I have wondered if this is a result of in-breeding. In southern Michigan, where large (100 plus deer) herds are confined to small woodlots (160-320 acres) due to suburban growth these piebald and even "near" albino deer (essentially pure white, although sightings have never determined if they have pink eyes) are starting to be seen more frequently in the last few years.

My cousin shot one of these many years ago in southern Michigan when these type of deer were basically unheard of.

Don,

The common reaccurance of this trait you're seeing is partially due to the in-breeding, but not in the way I believe you're thinking. Piebald is a recessive trait, in the same way albinoism is. A normal color phase deer is the dominate trait, meaning if a dominate gene and a recessive gene mix, the result will be whatever is normal, in this case the deers color. You need two genes with the recessive trait to come together to get a piebald. These genes can come from either piebald deer themselves or normal deer with the gene for piebald. By having the piebald deer isolated, the genes coded for piebald come into contact more frequently. Hopefully somebody a bit better a biology will be able to explain this a little better.

There are two piebald does living on my property near Portland OR. All of thier fawns look normal though so they must have found a normal buck to hookup with.

I've seen them here in Wisconsin as well.....apparantly rare but not that rare.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Fjold:
James, did he think it was a goat?

No goats on Stewart island Frank its the little island right at the bottom of New Zealand,you guys have shopping malls bigger than Stewart island

Looks like his fawn spots never went away and just grew with him.

What in the world are you feeding your deer, Vegemite?
Bad joke, I know

Sevens,
You did a pretty good job ,short of going too deeply into the textbook.They're locally abundant here,meaning there's a higher occurence of the trait/genes ,so it gets expressed more,as there is a greater chance of two deer with the gene getting together. We had two decent piebald bucks on our place a few years ago.Wife wound up taking the (unknown to us) third.A spike.Most all have "goatheads",ie. short,drooping muzzle,and many have what appear to be short,bowlegged legs.Others,look fine.I believe that these traits are also genelinked.