The Seneca white deer are a rare

herd A herd is a social group of certain animals of the same species, either wild or domestic. The form of collective animal behavior associated with this is called '' herding''. These animals are known as gregarious animals. The term ''herd'' ...

deer A deer (: deer) or true deer is a hoofed ruminant ungulate of the family Cervidae (informally the deer family). Cervidae is divided into subfamilies Cervinae (which includes, among others, muntjac, elk (wapiti), red deer, and fallow deer) ...

living within the confines of the former

Seneca Army Depot The former Seneca Army Depot occupied between Seneca Lake and Cayuga Lake in Seneca County, New York. It was used as a munitions storage and disposal facility by the United States Army from 1941 until the 1990s. The property was transferred t ...

Seneca County, New York Seneca County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 33,814. The primary county seat is Waterloo, moved there from the original county seat of Ovid in 1819. It became a two-shire county in 1822 ...

. When the depot was created in 1941, a fence was erected around its perimeter, isolating a small herd of

white-tailed deer The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known Common name, commonly as the whitetail and the Virginia deer, is a medium-sized species of deer native to North America, North, Central America, Central and South America. It is the ...

(''Odocoileus virginianus''), some of which had white coats. These deer are not

albino Albinism is the congenital absence of melanin in an animal or plant resulting in white hair, feathers, scales and skin and reddish pink or blue eyes. Individuals with the condition are referred to as albinos. Varied use and interpretation of ...

, but instead have

leucism Leucism () is a wide variety of conditions that result in partial loss of pigmentation in an animal—causing white, pale, or patchy coloration of the skin, hair, feathers, scales, or cuticles, but not the eyes. It is occasionally spelled ''le ...

, which is an abnormal genetic condition that carries a set of recessive genes for all-white coats. While little is known about what caused leucism in the white-tailed deer, especially for this herd, researchers have noticed that its isolation causes high levels of inbreeding. With inbreeding, it leaves recessive

allele An allele is a variant of the sequence of nucleotides at a particular location, or Locus (genetics), locus, on a DNA molecule. Alleles can differ at a single position through Single-nucleotide polymorphism, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP), ...

s of the white-tailed population to be expressed. This recessive trait does not pose a danger to the animal. However, it is very rare. In the 1950s, the depot commander forbade

GIs A geographic information system (GIS) consists of integrated computer hardware and software that store, manage, analyze, edit, output, and visualize geographic data. Much of this often happens within a spatial database; however, this is not ...

from shooting any white deer. The deer population has since grown to about 700 head, approximately 300 of which are white, making it the largest herd of white deer in the world. Seneca White Deer were created through years of selective breeding within the depot to create an environment where they can flourish.

Future of the herd

Since the depot's closure in 2000, the future of the deer has been uncertain. The visibility of white deer makes them easy prey for hunters and natural enemies like

coyote The coyote (''Canis latrans''), also known as the American jackal, prairie wolf, or brush wolf, is a species of canis, canine native to North America. It is smaller than its close relative, the Wolf, gray wolf, and slightly smaller than the c ...

s, and such a herd would not survive in the wild . The depot land is New York's largest block of land available for development, and some new uses have been found for it. The Five Points maximum security state prison was built on the eastern rim, and the former

barracks Barracks are buildings used to accommodate military personnel and quasi-military personnel such as police. The English word originates from the 17th century via French and Italian from an old Spanish word 'soldier's tent', but today barracks ar ...

on the northern tip was converted into housing for troubled teenagers. Plans to buy of land to build an

ethanol Ethanol (also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound with the chemical formula . It is an Alcohol (chemistry), alcohol, with its formula also written as , or EtOH, where Et is the ps ...

and

biofuel Biofuel is a fuel that is produced over a short time span from Biomass (energy), biomass, rather than by the very slow natural processes involved in the formation of fossil fuels such as oil. Biofuel can be produced from plants or from agricu ...

electricity production Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by M ...

center and to plant crops of

willow Willows, also called sallows and osiers, of the genus ''Salix'', comprise around 350 species (plus numerous hybrids) of typically deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist soils in cold and temperate regions. Most species are known ...

trees and

switch grass ''Panicum virgatum'', commonly known as switchgrass, is a perennial warm season bunchgrass native to North America, where it occurs naturally from 55th parallel north, 55°N latitude in Canada southwards into the United States and Mexico. Switch ...

to be converted into fuel was proposed. In 2006, a business plan was submitted to the Seneca County Industrial Development Agency, owners of the depot property, to convert the land into a conservation park and

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

museum, but the plan was denied. In 2016, the property was sold to local businessman Earl Martin of Seneca Iron Works for $900,000 and established as Deer Haven Park, LLC.Deer Haven Park, LLC
Retrieved April 18, 2018''Democrat & Chronicle'', "Seneca Army Depot buyer announced", by Leo Roth, Sean Lahman and Steve Orr, June 16, 2016
Retrieved April 19, 2018. An agreement was later made between Martin and Dennis Money, founder of Seneca White Deer, Inc., to lease part of the land and operate it as a conservation park for the white deer.Seneca White Deer, Inc.
Retrieved April 19, 2018. Following renovations to the fencing and construction of a welcome center and museum, Seneca White Deer park opened for tours in November 2017, ending December 29, 2019. Tours reopened on Saturdays on June 27, 2020, as self-guided auto tours with the option to download an auto tour app. The current plans for the depot are to preserve the approximately 200 deer left through strategic investment and innovation.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Seneca White Deer, Inc.

in Wisconsin at

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

Odocoileus Urban wildlife Mutation Seneca County, New York Endemic fauna of New York (state)

Future of the herd

See also

References

External links