Two rare white deer spotted in PML area
Two white deer have been spotted numerous times in recent weeks in the Pine Mountain Lake area.
Kelly Flynn, of Sonora, was driving to visit with family on Thanksgiving when she saw some people standing by the side of the road and pointing. Flynn stopped and she and her son, Justin Flynn, took photos and video.
“It was close to the golf course about 1 p.m.,” Kelly Flynn said Friday. “They looked like young deer to me. They were stunning. They were snow white. It looked like they were with their mom.”
The young white deer appeared to be about waist-high on most humans. A video by Justin Flynn shows them backlit by the sun, and one of the white deer’s ears turn pink in the direct sunlight. A larger, tan and brown deer can be seen licking the ears of the other white deer.
“My daughter sees them up there,” Kelly Flynn said. “It was a really great start to a fun day.”
Bunny Davies saw Kelly Flynn’s photo on social media and commented, “They are so cute! I saw two of those deer up in Groveland a couple weeks ago.”
Contacted by phone Friday, Davies texted she has a cleaning business, In and Out Cleaning, and in early November she was in the Pine Mountain Lake area working. On her way between jobs she passed by something white that appeared to be a statue at first.
She said she backed up to get a closer look, “then it’s ear twitched… and we saw the other one too.”
Davies said it happened on Nov. 3, and she took a photo of one of the deer.
“That was the first time I have
seen an albino deer,” Davies said Friday.
White deer, sometimes referred to as albino deer, are so rare that the chances of an albino deer being born are about one in 20,000, according to John Bates, a Wisconsin naturalist and co-author of “White Deer: Ghosts of the Forest,” published in 2007. The website protectthewhitedeer.com adds that other sources say the odds are closer to one in 30,000.
Some indigenous tribal peoples revere the white animals and believe they possess spirits of ancestors, according to outdoors writer Pete Thomas.
In June 2019, NBC Bay Area reported that a white fawn was found by a truck driver in the middle of a road in Woodland in Yolo County, northwest of Sacramento. The fawn had a pink nose and large
ears. A fawn rescue specialist named Diane Nicholas estimated the white fawn was about three weeks old, and it was the first time she’d treated an albino deer in 13 years.
A white deer was also spotted in January 2007 somewhere in the foothills of Tuolumne County, KCRA reported. A resident named Barbara Goethe said she saw the deer while looking out her kitchen window. Another resident named Eleanor Ellis said she first thought the white deer was a goat or a sheep. The white deer was seen more than once, and sometimes it was with an older deer that appeared to be its mother, which had normal marking and color.
The state Department of Fish and Game told KCRA that white deer are extremely rare. A state Fish and Wildlife environmental scientist based in Tuolumne County could not be reached for comment Friday.