PORT ANGELES — Unusual piebald blacktail deer are appearing in Clallam County, with as many as four brightly marked fawns spotted this year.
A Lake Crescent resident photographed a healthy 8-week-old piebald fawn — marked like an appaloosa horse with a white, spotted body and dark legs and head — in the East Beach Road area, and two others have been recorded and collared by wildlife officials.
Other sightings of similarly patterned fawns and yearlings have not been confirmed but are likely to be authentic reports, according to wildlife biologists who began seeing the colorful deer a year ago.
“Until the one captured [in 2014], I had never seen one before,” said Kim Sager-Fradkin, a wildlife biologist with the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe, who has been working with Clallam County wildlife for 17 years.
The state Department of Fish and Wildlife has undertaken a major study of fawn survival rates in Western Washington — but despite hundreds of fawns located and collared for the study, there have been no piebald fawns reported in other areas, said Anita McMillan, wildlife biologist for the department.
The genetics for the coloration is apparently more prevalent in the Clallam County area than most regions of Western Washington, she said.
McMillan said she did not know why.
The coloration is the result of genetic variation and in most deer populations represents less than 1 percent of fawns born.
Sager-Fradkin said that in 2014, one of 25 fawns she tagged that year was piebald, and only 1 of 49 fawns had that coloration this year.
The fawns are often described as beautiful, said McMillan.
But the coloration can be lethal.
It is rather like wearing an orange vest — increasing visibility to predators, McMillan said.
With their bright coloration, such deer are less likely to survive predation and hunting seasons, she said.
But they may be more visible to drivers and less likely to be killed on the road.
McMillan located and collared a piebald fawn in the McDonald Creek drainage, and Sager-Fradkin collared a piebald fawn in the Pysht River area.
The Lake Crescent fawn is the third confirmed, and a piebald fawn has been reported but not confirmed at Hurricane Ridge.
Four known piebald fawns would be a very unusual cluster of the rare coloration, McMillan said.
Piebald genetics have been associated with other genetic abnormalities.
The piebald fawn located and collared in the McDonald Creek drainage had teeth less developed than usual for its age.
However, the fawn’s tracking collar has indicated it has survived through late July, McMillan said.
Based on viewing pictures of the Lake Crescent fawn, both the fawn and its mother seem very healthy, she said.
Sager-Fradkin said the Pysht River fawn died at the age of 6 weeks, the body found without injuries in a wooded area.
The cause of death is not known but is thought to be related to the genetics of its coloration, she said.
It was found in the same clearcut as a piebald fawn tagged in 2014, which Sager-Fradkin described as a severely deformed and which died soon after birth.
Both of the Pysht piebald fawns were one of a set of twins thought to be born to the same doe, and the other twin in each case had normal deer coloration and no deformities, she said.
Not all piebald fawns die young.
Yearling piebald deer have been reported in the Hunt Road area near Elwha River and in the Dan Kelly Road area.
Sager-Fradkin said it is possible the two locations represent the same yearling, but the Hunt Road yearling is thought to be a doe, which typically do not wander that far.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.
