FALMOUTH, Maine — Kristian Valle said he saw the deer in the woods behind his house Wednesday evening and quickly snapped a photo.
“If you look closely, you can see it!” Valle said, sharing his photo with NEWS CENTER Maine on Thursday. Blending in with snow and tree branches, the deer can be seen standing next to a white-tailed deer, staring directly into Valle’s camera.
Piebalds, often confused with albino deer, have blotches of white on portions of their fur, opposed to being completely white like albinos. Piebalds suffer from a recessive genetic trait condition found in less than 1 percent of white-tailed deer, according to BuckManager.com.
On Wednesday, a North Carolina man also spotted a piebald. NC Wildlife says your chances of seeing an albino deer in the wild are about one in 30,000.
This isn’t the first sighting in Maine, which is odd considering how rare research says they are. In March, Sallie Gardner saw a family of deer in her backyard, and a piebald was among the herd. In 2017, Jennifer Archer saw one along I-295 in Freeport.
