Herds of Rare White Deer Kept Secret in Upstate Park For Decades

You can see rare deer while taking a tour of the breathtaking park.

It's hard to imagine here upstate but there are a lot of New Yorkers about an hour south of us who have never seen a deer in person. Watching Disney's Bambi is as close as some of them have ever gotten to them. Deer are exotic to many New Yorkers.

I'm from Michigan. I like to think I know a thing or two about deer. We even have a deer on our state flag (You can't make that up).

I've fed white-tailed deer, seen white-tailed, hunted white-tailed and avoided hitting white-tailed with my car. Sometimes I've been unsuccessful at that last one. I've never heard of a white deer though.

They are called the Seneca deer and they are absolutely gorgeous. According to Wikipedia, Seneca deer aren't endangered but they are rare. Their isolation causes large amounts of inbreeding and they carry a recessive gene that makes their fur white. They are not albino.

You can catch a glimpse of these magnificent creatures at Deer Haven Park in Romulus near the Finger Lakes Region of New York. According to their website, the park is housed on thousands of acres that were once owned by the United States Military. It was originally called the Seneca Ordnance Depot. Roughly 20 years ago the military gifted the land back to the County.

Though the land was once a well-kept secret you can now take guided bus tours throughout the beautiful park.