Okay, I’m not having much success with this. I can’t find a place where you can go and look up the Illinois hunting regulations to find out why it’s illegal to shoot albino deer.
The week before Christmas, a Downstate hunter shot an albino buck that had been hanging around one of the local conservation areas. Animal lovers were outraged because they enjoyed seeing it there when they went to birdwatch or horseback ride. The cite here only gives the bare bones of the story–the rest of the controversy has been taking place in the Letters to the Editor. http://www.herald-review.com/0/deer1217-0.html
Anyway, he shot it legally, it was on private land and he had the landowner’s permission to be hunting there. But his supporters have been making a big deal out of the fact that the animal had “the required small brown spot” on it somewhere, so it was okay to shoot it.
So my question is, why is it illegal to shoot albino deer? Why is it okay to shoot it if it has a small brown spot on it somewhere? What difference does a small brown spot make?
Hunters here are saying that albino deer are weaker and somehow less competent, that it’s good for the deer gene pool to remove them. All I can find on the Web so far is “everybody knows” stuff.
Wow this is a really interesting question, hopefully someone will come along and give an answer. I do know that about 2 years ago an albino deer was harvested in Missouri, although that adds nothing.
Well, maybe it’s an albino thing – the albino squirrels in Olney, IL are protected under law - can’t hunt them and iirc, you get fined if accidentally kill one!
Well, as stated above, it’s mostly a tourist attraction thing. The only reason anybody knows Olney, IL is because of their albino squirrels. It would make sense that they would want to protect them.
It may also be to protect livestock. White deer are pretty rare in my part of the country. White sheep or cattle, however, are quite common in some places.
Let’s try this again. IE crashed and I lost this post the first time.
Most white deer are not true albinos. You can tell they’re not albinos because they have normally colored noses and eyes, and often have small dark spots. It’s a chance genetic thing like a white (not albino) puppy being born to two brown dogs. Whiteness is selected against in the wild because it makes it easier for predators to spot.
The injunction against killing them may derive from a common North American Indian superstition that my 5th grade teacher told us about. (He used to hunt with an Indian guide in Pennsylvania). Some Indians believed killing a white deer is very bad luck, but that seeing one without killing it is good luck. See Indian Superstitions and Legends
You can order publications about hunting regulations through the mail from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. There is also a large (900 kilobytes) PDF file of hunting regulaitons, but I think that’s what made IE crash last time. Try it at your own risk: it’s here
I don’t think I could support your “Indian superstition” theory, unless Illinois also forbids menstruating women from walking through areas laced with game trails, or **requires **hunters to consume some symbolic part of their kill (blood, heart, left lung, pick something) to preserve the strength, skill, etc. of the animal.
A better explanation is that laws don’t always make sense, and are sometimes based more on misunderstanding, sentiment, or just a general public consensus of opinion, rather than logic and reason. It’s most likely that some politician who had never seen a deer received a letter one day from a lady who saw a white one near her garden and thought it was cuter than the brown ones. The letter got the politician thinking what a wonderful opportunity this was to get his name on the books as the author of Illinois State Statute #126478.26 of the Fish & Game Code. Once it was drawn up and submitted, people got on the “Anything rare is worth preserving” bandwagon, and the law passed. Those people who don’t know whether or not albino or even piebald deer have anything to contribute to the gene pool, or if they are so weak they never get to mate (Heck, I don’t know) are the same ones that forget there was a time when AIDS was rare.
Of course the cool thing about this country is that if the majority of “the people” vote that white deer should be protected, they will be, even if it’s because they just think they’re cute.
“I don’t think I could support your “Indian superstition” theory, unless Illinois also forbids menstruating women from walking through areas laced with game trails, or requires hunters to consume some symbolic part of their kill (blood, heart, left lung, pick something) to preserve the strength, skill, etc. of the animal.”
Your not required to drink the blood of the deer you kill? Opps…
Its probably because it is not very sporting to shoot an albino deer. Also as mentioned before people like to see unusual animals even if they are a detriment to the herd.
I have to admit I’ve been known to ooh and ahh over the sight of unusual specimens.
I am curious though to see if the states with these statutes imposed them as temporary measures pending a study to determine the survivability of these animals if left unmolested, and their potential contributions to the local population, or if they would protect them even if they contribute nothing, while draining the resources that could otherwise support contributing members of the herd. You know, like when Deion Sanders was with the Cowboys…
The white deer of the Seneca Army Depot
“The Old Seneca Army Depot is continuing its fight to protect the white deer. But environmentalists have an uphill battle in front of them. The group “Seneca White Deer Incorporated” wants to keep the 200 deer fenced in but several areas still remain open where the deer can escape.
Group members are trying to acquire the land, but the army must clean up the former weapons depot and that could take seven years.
Environmentalists fear if the deer leave the protected land, they would become targets for natural predators and coveted trophies for hunters.”
Many hunters, myself included, would like to see white deer preserved simply because of their rarity. My guess is these laws, like most game laws, exist to protect a population that is endangered even if it is just a genetic abnormality of the species.
I have to admit a little concern over the statement, “if the deer leave the protected land, they would become targets for natural predators and coveted trophies for hunters.”
For one thing, if they never fall to natural predators, they would theoretically reproduce at an alarming rate until they eventually exceeded the land’s capacity to support them. Then what? They can let them starve, or they can buy more land, or they can allow cull hunting, or they can bring in tons of hay and feed them, in effect making them a domesticated species, and what’s the point in “protecting” livestock? Even cattle ranchers who don’t want hunters shooting their cows only protect them until it’s time to sell or slaughter them. I haven’t met many “environmentalists” that had a better understanding of nature than the average trophy hunter. And I’m not a big fan of “trophy hunters” either. I hunt, but if I kill something, there’s a better reason than just hanging something on the wall.
For that matter, it’s always funny to see the words “natural predators and hunters.” It would be more accurate to say human & non-human predators, or tool-using and non-tool-using hunters. Humans are as much a predator as any other carnivorous or omnivorous creature, but somehow the vegetarians and people who buy meat (instead of killing it personally) always forget that.
I don’t think this is going to shed much light on the question, but it is worth mentioning that unusual white animal skins were often given as a form of tribute from one Indian tribe to another. I’ve seen this used as a legal solution a number of times while researching colonial-era disputes between Indian tribes.
However, a state government’s observing such a courtesy to our Indian neighbors by specifically codifying the regulations to accomodate their sensibilities would be… unusual. Not unlike a white deer, for that matter.
I’m much more inclined to guess that it is because people think white animals are cute.
Not to mention the fact that the only natural predator around here would be coyotes or dogs. IIRC previously the deer were culled by special permit, bowhunting only. I think the major reason for leaving them seperate from the rest of the whitetail population is to keep the genepool from cleaning itself up. Of course if we let nature take its’ course we wouldn’t have these white deer. I think the greatest danger to these animals currently is inter-breeding rather than hunting or predators.
