Man Shoots Rare Albino Deer, Provokes Internet's Wrath

Missouri hunter Jerry Kinnaman shot a rare albino deer in the woods near his home this week and has been getting criticism similar to that directed at a young Michigan hunter earlier this fall. (Screenshot via YouTube)

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It likely isn’t much consolation to Gavin Dingman and his family, but a Missouri man is getting a taste of the controversy that swirled around a big moment in the 11-year-old southeast Michigan boy’s life when he bagged a rare albino deer.

After Gavin shot the 12-point buck with his crossbow in October, the debate reached ferocious levels, underscoring the power of social and digital media to expose discrete cultural practices to a wider world with a potentially very different set of norms.

What had been a semi-private, joyous event – a coming-of-age moment in many parts of the country – devolved in some corners of the web to unsettling invective in some cases, pure abuse in others directed at a child who was, after all, only 11.

In Cape Girardeau, MO, Jerry Kinnaman told KFVS-TV that he was prepared for a similar onslaught of negativity after he shot a 10-point albino buck with a bow and arrow Tuesday morning.

The deer had been roaming the woods near his home for about seven years and Kinnaman had passed it over on previous hunts, he told The Southeast Missourian. What changed his mind was a friend, who had previously asked him not to shoot the deer “because it was so beautiful, you know.”

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But the striking deer had become a local celebrity and people were trespassing on the friend’s land to get a glimpse of it. “... It was getting to be too much of a hassle,” Kinnaman said. “It got so and that he came back to me and said, ‘I want you to shoot this deer.’ ”

He did.

“I’m sure this is gonna stir some people up,” he told some friends who had come by to admire his trophy.

He wasn’t wrong.

On the KFVS-TV website, one of many readers who weighed in commented:

“Jerry Kinnaman, let me ask you a question: How would you like to be shot at just because of your color, does that sound ethical?”

Albinism a Result of Genetic Mutation

In both states, wildlife officials say albino deer result from genetic mutations and suffer from poor eyesight and other disabilities, and they argue that protecting them only perpetuates and makes more prevalent those negative characteristics.

Such deer are rare, with estimates ranging from an occurrence once in every 20,000 deer births to once in every 100,000 deer births.

Shooting albino deer is legal in both Michigan and Missouri. Michigan Department of Natural Resources officials turned back a 1980s ban on albino deer hunting in 2008, arguing there was no scientific reason to protect albinos and piebalds because of the undesirable genetic mutation.

Some people commenting on the Michigan story encouraged laws to protect albino deer, which some contended were “spirit animals” that were revered in Native American culture. Currently, only five states protect albino deer: Illinois, Iowa, parts of Montana, Tennessee, and Wisconsin, except in areas where chronic wasting disease is a problem.

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