White doe drawing attention near Solon

A snow white deer is attracting attention among wildlife watchers west of Solon, the Department of Natural Resources reported Tuesday.

For the past two weeks, as many as a dozen people have been awaiting the mature doe's almost daily appearance in a farm field, the DNR said.

Last weekend observers said she was accompanied by a standard-colored fawn, which is likely her own offspring, according to DNR deer biologist Tom Litchfield.

“You would expect a regular-colored fawn,” Litchfield said.

She would bear a white fawn only if the fawn's sire was a white buck or a brown buck with the recessive gene for white coloration, he said.

Litchfield said wildlife biologists believe that about one in 100,000 Iowa deer is a true albino, with a complete lack of pigmentation. Somewhat less than half the white deer in Iowa are not true albinos, he said.

Albinos can be distinguished from other white deer by their pink eyes, ears and nose and their pale hooves, he said.

Litchfield said he gets about six reports of white deer sightings per year. While they come from all corners of the state, three counties – Buchanan, Jasper and Washington -- have consistently had the most reports, he said.

Biologists suspect that most of the white deer in Buchanan County are descendants of a white deer that escaped from a captive deer facility, Litchfield said.

Though highly visible white deer are more susceptible to predation, they have been protected since the 1980s when the Legislature declared it illegal to hunt “a predominantly white, white-tailed deer.”