An Albino Moose And Deer, Quite a Sight

Thursday, December 13, 2007 03:58 AM

Joan Evans of Ft St John says she is troubled by the report that an albino Moose that she and her co-worker Lynn Chisholm spotted and took pictures of back in October on the Montney Road North of Ft St John, may have been hit and killed along that busy stretch of road.

“I was told that someone had hit and killed the moose in the area the pictures were taken “. Some of the people from the nearby Reserve went back to the location that it apparently had occurred only to find that the moose had been taken. Conservation officers are following that up she added.

The good news she concluded is that someone said there has been another Albino moose spotted not far from that location which would be rare indeed. " I can only hope it is true."says Evans.

Meantime Opinion250 has received these pictures of an Albino Whitetail deer taken in the Riding Mountain National Park about 240 kilometers north of Winnipeg in Manitoba. A school teacher in Dauphin, who travels this road every day back and forth to his home in Onanole where he lives, snapped the picture.

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Posted on Thursday, December 13, 2007 03:58 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: rambleon on December 13 2007 7:38 AM

I saw what I believed to be a pair of albino moose on Fraser Lake, just off the highway in February of 2005. After speaking with a few biologists at the university, I found what I saw wasn't actually an albino, rather a pair of moose with expressed recessive genetic mutations that cause normally coloured calves to lose their colour not long after birth. Unlike an albino that is born without pigment, the white moose undergoes something akin to premature greying in humans. It's estimated that only 1 in 100,000 moose demonstrate this colouring. However, due to the colour variation being attributed to genetics, it's not uncommon to see more than one moose in this colour, if you're lucky enough to see the first, that is!

I think the picture of the moose above (which I've seen submitted elsewhere on the internet by Ms. Evans) is one of these "White Moose." On the other hand, the whitetail in the photos definitely seems to be an albino. The red eyes and pink nose are a sure give-away.

Currently in BC there is no legislation against the hunting of white moose.

Posted by: rambleon on December 13 2007 1:07 PM

oops!

"...weren't actually albinos,..."