Patty Loew:
As winter gives way to spring in the northwoods, we track some stunning creatures described as the ghosts of the forest. "In Wisconsin” reporter Jo Garrett gives you a rare look at the elusive white deer herd near Boulder Junction.

Man:
Visually they're so unusual and so startling.

Man:
It looks like a ghost at times just kind of drifting through the woods.

Jo Garrett:
Jeff Richter is a nature photographer based in Mercer. Some ten years ago Richter took his camera and went to track down a mystery. Local stories of a band of white deer near Boulder Junction. He saw a flash of white.

Jeff Richter:
And so I stopped and got out of the car and had my cameras with me so I eased over there and all of a sudden the deer popped its head up and I looked eye-to-eye with this white deer and was instantly hooked by them.

Jo Garrett:
So began a decade-long quest that has resulted in Richter's recent book, White Deer.

Man:
My headlights flash onto a white doe standing by the road. We were going slow anyway but the brakes are on and it's the intake of breath and oh my God, a white deer.

Jo Garrett:
John Bates of Manitowish is a well-known northwoods naturalist and the author of the text of Richter's book. It was his job to research the science and history of these deer in Wisconsin. He discovered that they seem to have been here for ages. They are the subject of Native American legends and they're mentioned in the journals of European explorers.

John Bates:
There is a pocket here in Manitowish Waters area, around Boulder Junction. There have been individuals seen all around the state. But there seems to be an unusual concentration here in north central Wisconsin. Why? I have absolutely no idea.

Jo Garrett:
Why the white deer came to flourish in these places no one knows but there are at least two reasons why they're thriving now.

John Bates:
Local people protect these deer and feed these deer. We have laws now that prevent people, at least, cost you dearly if you wish to shoot one in Wisconsin, you'll pay.

Jo Garrett:
They're protected by state law and cherished by the local communities. And yes, they really are albino. Pink eyes are not required according to Bates' research.

John Bates:
I was always told that albino deer had to have pink eyes. I contacted a professor of genetic studies at the University of Minnesota who tried his best to educate me. The bottom line, he said there are many forms of albinism and pink eyes are a strong likelihood but not a necessity.

Jo Garrett:
So what will you see in Wisconsin's white deer?

John Bates:
Pink ears, they'll have -- their noses will be pink and the eye of an albino deer will be either pink or light blue or light gray. They almost look like eyes of a goat. Very different looking so you would have this brilliant white animal with these pink characteristics, ears, nose and hooves.

Jo Garrett:
How many of these white deer do we have in Wisconsin?

John Bates:
Well, if we ran the numbers we have 1.5 million more or less deer, and if we have one in 20,000 chance of having albinos, 20,000 into 1.5 million. Where is my calculator? I don't know. It's not a very big number.

Jo Garrett:
That rough number, that roll of the genetic dice, doesn't say how many animals will actually survive. Bates, the naturalist, speculates.

John Bates:
Certainly in the summer they'll be far more obvious to a natural predator but in the winter, which five months out of the year up here, they would have the advantage. Five months versus seven months. Maybe it's a tradeoff.

Jo Garrett:
You can see that roll of the genetic dice played out in individual families.

Jeff Richter:
I've seen albino does with albino and brown fawns, and brown does with albino and brown fawns as well, so they can have both and they seem to, you know, not be ostracized from the other deer. At times they seem to be the dominant animal and other times they seem to be a more submissive animal. They just seem to be regular deer as far as the deer are concerned.

Jo Garrett:
Regular in behavior. Remarkable in appearance.

Jeff Richter:
We actually have had a couple stores where clerks overheard people had picked up the book and looking at it and said boy, this is really neat. If only they were real.

Jo Garrett:
Oh, they're real all right.

Jeff Richter:
They just at times look kind of funny out there, honestly, particularly like summertime where they're sort of sneaking around in the woods and cripes, you can see them 100 yards away. They stick out like a sore thumb and they're doing their usual deer sneaking. It is kind of -- you chuckle to yourself. But there is something, just a little different about them and special about them.

Patty Loew:
Photographer Jeff Richter's pictures and stories are contained in his book White Deer: Ghosts of the Forest.