tags: albino moose
Like a spectre floating out of the woods, a rare albino moose was spotted recently by Kurt Nikkinen in northern Norway, approximately 30 kilometers east of Karasjok in Finnmark County. Nikkinen was on his way home after a fishing trip when he saw the animal. He had a video camera in his car and managed to film the moose from his car as it ran along the road. At one point, he was only about 20 meters from the moose.
"It was a great experience to see and film it. It is not the kind of thing you experience more than once in a lifetime," Nikkinen said.
There had been rumors of the white moose along with sightings of the animal in the area around three years ago. Nikkinen believes the moose is a youngster, probably about a year and a half old, so it is likely a relative of the other animal that had been seen. A white moose appeared in Ãstfold County in southern Norway last October and sparked a heated debate about whether it should be hunted or preserved. A hunter himself, Nikkinen said he could never shoot a white moose.
"It would make a special trophy but it won't be on my wall. Such a fine animal should be protected," he stated.
Cited story and image.
It reminds me of the white tigers,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_tiger
A recessive (and pretty clearly detrimental) gene only propagated because humans thought it looked cool.
This moose is likely albino because it has red eyes. It may have trouble surviving because of the adverse effects of light on albino eyes. The place where it is living is far enough north that there is continuous daylight during the summer for about 2 months.
It's a good thing that the father and son team behind hogzilla-2 didn't spot that little guy. THIS is how you shoot a rare animal!
Over at Aftenposten, there is a link to a discussion of last year's sighting ("White moose sparks debate") and surprisingly ignorant comments from Norwegian scientists.
It's the March of the Moose Morons! It would be one thing to point out that there's no need from a management point of view to preserve albinos, but what the hell? Considering that the albinism allele is probably all over the moose population in the heterozygous condition, one homozygote managing to breed would hardly be a catastrophe.
That's pretty neat.-I see moose when I visit New Hampshire, but would be quite shocked if I saw an albino one.
This is clearly a message from Mother Nature that we're in for another ice age really soon, requiring rapid development of a Polar Moose variety.
Watch for other species adapted to living in white environments soon. If we start seeing white caymans and capybaras and anteaters, it'll be time to really worry.