ALBINO MULE DEER A RARE, EERIE SIGHT.

Byline: Brett Pauly Daily News Staff Writer

The tales had circulated within the hunting community for decades: apparitions among deer, with pink eyes and snow-white bodies. Nature's anomalies, so rare that some wildlife biologists are unfamiliar with them, yet so revered by American Indian coastal tribes of Northern California that dances were choreographed in their image.

``They have absolutely no color other than white and occur naturally at some low rate. They look like ghosts, especially at night,'' said Sonke Mastrup, a biologist with the Department of Fish and Game's deer program in Sacramento.

Mastrup had heard the same stories for years but didn't see his first albino mule deer until the early 1990s, while trapping pheasants for relocation at Delevan National Wildlife Refuge, east of Maxwell in the Sacramento Valley's Colusa County.

``We were using these big spotlights to pin the pheasants, when I noticed four deer. One of them stood out. It had a ghostly-glare look,'' Mastrup said. ``It startled me when I saw it. Instantly I recognized it as an albino, a true albino buck in a group of bucks.''

The biologist has since spoken with several refuge managers who have had similar experiences. Albino mule deer have also been spotted at Gray Lodge Wildlife Area east of Delevan, on Rank Island in the San Joaquin River Ecological Reserve near Fresno and at other sites where deer tend to be separated from larger populations.

Fresno's John Buada, a natural resource manager for a sand and gravel mining operation, has photographed two albino deer on Rank Island.

``The more I talked to other people, the more I found how extremely rare albino deer are,'' said Buada, who snapped a shot of a yearling albino with its mother in the spring of 1995 and a fawn - presumably the first white muley's sibling - a year later. ``And the fact that there are two of them here is rarer yet. That gene is in the herd. I felt real fortunate to see them and photograph both.''

Scientists explain that albinism is a recessive trait that occurs naturally in mule deer, like it does in many animals, including humans. It can also crop up as a mutation, which is even more obscure.

Albinism happens most often within inbred animal populations, Mastrup said. The Delevan deer, for example, came from an area surrounded by agriculture, where there are few deer moving in and out of the isolated population, resulting in a reduced gene flow. ``One of the genetic consequences can be an increase in albinism because that tends to favor recessive traits,'' the biologist said.

``Whether you see it in your lifetime is another story,'' said Ron Jurek, a DFG wildlife biologist and endangered species specialist in Sacramento.

Albino or partial albino red-tailed hawks, blackbirds and robins are seen with some frequency. But so uncommon are albino muleys that Indians in the Humboldt County area paid them particular significance and performed the White Deer Dance, Jurek noted. The ceremonial hides were passed down for generations.

``Indian lore is full of references to white deer, and all that is is an albino deer,'' Mastrup echoed. It is the West's version of the great white buffalo, he said.

Albino mule deer have been confused with white fallow deer that reside in Point Reyes National Seashore north of San Francisco, near Ukiah in Mendocino County and at other locales scattered around the state, said Jurek, who has studied the exotic fallow. Native to the Mediterranean countries of Europe, the fallow deer appears in a range of shades, from its wild coloration of white-spotted brown to black to white.

The entire Ukiah herd is white. But the frosty fallows don't have pink eyes like albino mule deer, whose peepers are pink because they have no pigmentation to prevent blood vessels from showing through, Jurek said.

The rarity of white mule deer is compounded by the fact that along with the albino gene come additional recessive traits that adversely affect the animal's health. Plus, the lack of pigmentation is more noticeable to predators.

``Deer rely on camouflage. Can you imagine how a white deer would stand out to a mountain lion - or to a hunter for that matter?'' Mastrup said.

But hunting albino deer is perfectly legal - and nourishing. ``They taste just the same as a regular animal; they just look different,'' Mastrup explained.

Coming to a close

Deer-hunting season ends in Southern California on Sunday. Until then hunters can target animals in zones D12 and D16, which include parts of San Bernardino, Riverside, Imperial and San Diego counties. While D12 is sold out, there are approximately 55 D16 tags available.

Information: Department of Fish and Game License and Revenue Branch, [phone].

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Photo

PHOTO (color) Albino deer, like the one spotted here on the San Joaquin River, are rare and appear ghostly at night.

John C. Buada / Special to the Daily News