After a terrible few years, the beloved herd of Wyoming Range mule deer is recovering with a fresh crop of fawns, including one that is incredibly uncommon and odd-looking.
Kemmerer resident Jeff Orvin, who loves the Wyoming Range herd, saw the fawn for the first time last week on the herd’s winter range close to La Barge. Its eyes are a vivid blue, and its coat is unusually light.
The fawn was born this spring, and he believes it probably has a genetic mutation known as leucism.
He declared, “I believe the fawn to be leucistic, but other people have seen pictures and have different opinions.”
According to him, whitetail deer are more likely than mule deer to have leucism, which results in a lack of pigmentation in their skin and coat.
Orvin told Cowboy State Daily that the fawn’s health appears to be unaffected by the condition.
It seems to be in good health. It looks good and is fat,” he remarked.
Not The Same As Albino
According to the deer biology website World Deer, leucistic deer are sometimes confused with albinos, but they are not the same thing.
Deer and certain other species can become white due to both genetic mutations. But according to World Deer, leucistic deer can be any color. Furthermore, the fawn by La Barge is not white but rather lighter tan.
According to World Deer, “both leucism and albinism are genetic mutations.” Animals cannot be partially albino, in contrast to leucism, which can happen partially. Either an animal is albino or it is not.
Herd Was Devastated
Both the sheer quantity of deer and the genetics that produced monster bucks have made the Wyoming Range mule deer herd legendary.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, that herd produced Goliath, Popeye, and Morty, three of Wyoming’s largest bucks ever, which are still discussed today.
Even though the herd’s numbers had begun to dwindle in recent years, there were still an estimated 30,000 deer as of the winter of 2022–2023.
Thousands of deer, elk, and antelope in Wyoming and northern Colorado were frozen and starved during that harsh winter.
The Wyomng Range herd suffered the most. Nearly all of the fawns from that year perished, along with up to 80% of the deer.
Baby Boom
According to Orvin, the herd began to recover the following spring with a bountiful crop of fawns, and this pattern is still going strong.
“I frequently drive up to check on the winter range, taking pictures and mainly just trying to find out what kind of bucks survived,” he declared.
He has, however, also observed a large number of fawns, including multiple sets of twins.
Game and Fish in Wyoming has reported that this year, there are roughly 82 fawns for every 100 does. He remarked, “That’s like, some kind of record.”
He doesn’t know if the mutant fawn has any siblings.
“When I first saw it, I thought I saw that it had a sibling with a normal appearance,” he remarked. “I was unable to identify which fawns were siblings because it was with a group of roughly 15 deer the next time I saw it.”
In the wild, leucistic deer are not known to have very high survival rates. However, Orvin stated that he hopes the fawn will develop into a distinctive adult and continue to stand out from the herd, given that it appears healthy and fat as it enters the winter months.