The white-tailed deer population has been on quite a ride over the past century. Historical reports indicate that whitetail populations were nearly extirpated within the United States by the early 1900′s. Fast forward a hundred years, add in regulated hunting, deer management efforts and the fact that only about 8 percent of the people in the U.S. hunt, and it is not uncommon to surf the web, pick up a newspaper or drive down the road to see another instance of deer overpopulation in both rural and suburban areas.

As the number of suburban areas have increased in Texas—and elsewhere—the whitetail populations found within them have grown proportionally, sometimes exponentially. Suburban deer overpopulation is literally a growing problem, but listen closely to any debate related to controlling a suburban whitetail population and you will soon find that for every person that wants to control deer through shooting, trapping, etc., there are others that want to protect them.

One interesting aspect of having a high number of suburbs and associated deer populations in Central Texas is that people see a lot of interesting things. This is especially true when it comes to melanistic deer. Melanistic deer are white-tailed deer that have black hair. They are the same as “normal’ whitetail, except that they are black. Each year, I receive several emails from folks—all residing in Central Texas—that have spotted these abnormally-colored, black deer. It seems this recessive genotype is more prevalent in this part of the state than anywhere else.

“I took these deer pictures this morning of a fawn in my front yard. I have seen a melanistic doe in our neighborhood and someone else has seen a buck. This black fawn has a twin that is normal, and the doe is in the right in the attached picture. Our neighborhood does not have a deer management program, but there is still a good percentage of wooded lots that have not been developed.

Most everyone has two to five acres lots, so there is still some room and habitat for whitetail. I have also included some pictures of the bucks that come to our house in this email. Their antlers are smaller than the South Texas deer my family hunts, but they sure are beautiful. Samantha, Bulverde, Texas.”

The gene that creates a completely dark-haired whitetail is recessive, so it is typically masked by the dominate, more common gene for a normal-colored deer. One can only suspect that the apparent “proliferation” of melanistic deer in Central Texas has something to do with the fact that they are found in protected areas and that many of the deer found in these populations are in fact carriers of the recessive color gene.

It’s probably safe to say that most odd-colored, free-ranging deer get harvested fairly quickly in areas that are open to deer hunting. After all, anything out of the ordinary in the wildlife world is considered a unique and memorable harvest. The U.S. whitetail population has bounced back strongly from its near extirpation and it seems more aggressive deer management actions are required in suburban areas, but you have to admit that these black deer are always cool to see!

The majority of white-tailed deer have brown and white hair, but piebald deer are beautiful animals possessing white and brown fur in random patterns similar to that of a paint horse. I know of very few piebald deer that have been harvested in Texas, but the photos seen here are making their way around the internet with claims that this big piebald buck was shot somewhere in east Texas. The location varies between Corsicana and Palestine.

Although both of the claims could have been false, I knew this abnormally colored buck was not harvested in Corsicana simply because there are no pine stands within 50 miles of the town, maybe more. Palestine, on the other hand, has pine forests and plenty of them. After a little more research, I discovered that this piebald trophy was actually harvested the first weekend of the General Season, but it was in fact taken near Palestine. The big-bodied deer was right at 200 pounds on the hoof — and is definitely a unique buck!   

While “black” deer, more accurately referred to as melanistic deer, are very rare across North America, it seems they are being spotted more frequently in central Texas. A few weeks ago I posted some photos of a melanistic buck in Austin, Texas, but it seems that animal is not the only white-tailed deer in the area with a color abnormality. Just check out the photos of these twin white-tailed deer fawns that were taken in the Northwest Hills area of Austin. 

Dr. John Baccus, director of the wildlife ecology program at Texas State University, has been studying melanistic deer for over 13 years now. And as it turns out, Texas is a good place to study the dark colored deer. That’s because there just happens to be more black deer in eight Texas counties than in the rest of the world combined!

And as staggering as that statistic may be, most Texans still haven’t seen one! There may be more abnormally dark white-tailed deer in the central part of Texas than everywhere else combined, but don’t go there expecting to see one. Dr. Baccus had this to say about Texas’ melanistic deer:

“Even though we have more melanistic deer here than in the whole world, they’re still extremely rare. It’s the rarest of the white-tailed deer, even rarer than the big-antlered deer. I get the harvest records every year from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and generally, there are fewer than five of these melanistic deer that are harvested in any given year.”

When it comes to white-tailed deer, we all know how they are supposed to look. But ocassionally we get genetic abnormalities and end up with something totally different — which is usually white (albino) or even more rare, black. All mammals, including white-tailed deer, can have black fur and these animals are referred to as melanistic. They are called melanistic because their body produces too much melanin, a dark pigment that causes their hair to be very dark brown or black.

Melanistic whitetails are the most rare color abnormality that deer can have – even more rare than piebald or albino deer. The photos seen here were sent to me and they allegedly came from somewhere around Austin, Texas. The photos are that of a melanistic white-tailed buck. The pictures where taken in a residential area so this rare buck may have lucked out. 

Anyone that has spent any amount of time chasing white-tailed deer has always wondered what deer are doing out there on a day to day basis. You’ve probably thought about this more than once after attempting to chase down a big buck you spotted earlier in the year. But what about white deer, particularly albinos?

Deer have a hard enough life as it is, but being a white deer in the woods would not be an advantage — except during the winter in snow-covered areas. As such, nature has virtually eliminated the color white from a white-tailed deer except for the underparts of the body. It’s just not an advantage to be totally white in the woods with coyotes, mountains lions, and hunters running around chasing after you! With that said, I’m always interested to see pictures of albino deer, but I’ve never seen a live one.

Usually, I end up with photos of albino deer. And here are a couple I received via email. I’m not sure where they were taken, but judging from the physical aspects of these animals (and the snow) these albino deer photos were taken somewhere in the northern US or Canada. This is all I have:

“Tim made the deer feeder with the ‘Browning’ logo. These twin albinos have been coming to our backyard since they were fawns in 2006. We have been trying to capture a digital pic of them for awhile, but they arrive at dusk or even later and they don’t turn out. On Friday about 10 am they arrived.”

More Albino Deer Photos: