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Avid Kewaskum hunter picks up roadkill and finds a rare albino deer pregnant with twins

January 29, 2024 – Boltonville, Wi – A rare find for a seasoned Kewaskum hunter as Chucker Dreher picked up some very unique roadkill on Highway 28 just east of St. Michaels.

albino

An avid hunter for 54 years, Dreher heard a rumor about an albino deer at the side of the road. He thought he was being pranked. “The guy who told me about it from the county is a jokester. He’s pulled some quick ones,” he said.

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Dreher’s buddy at school even thought it was a setup. “He said, he’s got you on this one because he knows you’ll pick up any roadkill if you know it’s fresh, just to save the damn thing.”

The pair joked, that if it is white… it was “probably sprayed with white paint.”

Dreher took off during his lunch hour.  “I drove by it four times going to Farmington and never seen it because of the snow and because it was white,” he said.

Sure enough, laying right on the side of the road, just east of Goeden’s Autobody, was a snow-white deer.

Dreher couldn’t believe it. “I’m shocked nobody else stopped. I talked to a gazillion people that drove by there and they said they did not see it.”

Dreher said there was no blood. Just a nick on the back leg and some road rash.

“When I got to it, which was the next day, she actually was still warm inside. But she was lying in a snowbank which was probably four feet deep,” he said.

More of the saga started to unfold when Dreher received a call from Tim Belger, whose daughter, Morgan, works in St. Michael’s. Belger suspected his daughter might have encountered the rare albino deer while driving home from work.

Morgan picks up the story. “It happened after work, around 9:30 p.m. It was super foggy; It was insane. I was going about 15 to 20 miles under the speed limit and couldn’t see anything.”

It was a split second and Morgan said the deer was just standing in the road. “I couldn’t do much. No airbags went off. I thought I hit a ghost. All I saw was white,” she said.  “I called my dad, and he told me to come home.”

Kewaskum

Dreher contacted the DNR and was told, despite the unusual circumstances, he could register the deer under his regular hunting license since it was a casualty of a car collision.

Morgan, 16, a junior at Kewaskum High School approached Dreher in the hallway at school and asked if he could transfer ownership to her. “She melted my heart just by asking,” he said.

When Dreher called the taxidermist, he was given special instructions on how to gut the deer without damaging it too much.

“I had to cut as small a hole as possible,” said Dreher. “So, I opened her up from her sternum to just in front of the first nipple; you don’t want to cut the milk sack.”

The next surprise was the doe was pregnant with twins. “I couldn’t tell if they would have been white because they were only about the size of my thumb; maybe two inches long,” he said. “Super young, maybe a month old.”

The doe, which weighed about 110 – 120 pounds, is currently resting in Dreher’s walk-in cooler at home. “Albinos usually don’t get real big,” he said. “I was told not to hang it, because you break the hairs. So, I’ve got it laying down on a shelf in my freezer, so she stays cold.”

Questioned whether it’s a true albino, Dreher said, “totally.”

“It’s got the pink nose, the pink eyelids, the pink ears and the white hooves. It’s a full albino.”

When asked, when was the last time he saw an albino deer, Dreher had one word.

“Never,” he said. “Around here never. Boulder Junction in northern Wisconsin, that’s the last I’ve seen an albino deer.”

Dreher was also surprised none of the hunters in the area ever spotted the albino deer.

The pregnant albino deer is now destined for a full mount. The taxidermy work will be carried out by local taxidermists Dirk and Jane Stolz, parents of famous local Olympic speedskater Jordan Stolz.

4 COMMENTS

  1. Such a great story. I’m happy she will live on if only to be enjoyed by people being able to see a rare sight.
    Sorry you lost your life and baby’s 😞

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