In late June, Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologist Jordan Pruszenski was in a small plane north of Fairbanks, counting caribou calves to see how many had survived their first month, a seasonal routine for the department. Then the survey pilot spotted something and swerved toward it.
“I’m just like, ‘What is happening?’” Pruszenski said.
Against the patchy brown tundra, a bright white speck was impossible to miss.
“You could totally see it like on the horizon, and then it steps onto like the snow patch and totally disappears,” she said.
The white speck was an albino caribou calf. The pilot circled back, and Pruszenski took several photos.
The calf’s white fur wasn’t the only thing that stood out, she said. It had “incredible, beady red eyes,” and its hooves – which are usually dark – were pink because they lacked pigment.
Sightings like this are almost unheard of. The last record Fish and Game has is from 1976, when someone watched an albino calf from the Porcupine Herd through a spotting scope for about two minutes. No photos were taken.
The calf Pruszenski photographed was a few weeks old, which is a dangerous time for any caribou calf. And if pilots and biologists can spot it easily, so can predators.
“Once it steps off of the snow it just really stands out,” Pruszenski said. “So we’re really not sure how long it’ll last.”
Health Risks
Fish and Game veterinarian Camilla Lieske said a white coat might not be the calf’s only challenge. Albino reindeer, the domesticated cousins of caribou, are often born with health problems, she said.
“It can be a shortened jaw. They kind of have a much rounder head. They have severe immune issues, and they don’t survive,” Lieske said.
Albino animals also lack melanin, a pigment that protects against the sun’s ultraviolet rays. That matters in the Arctic, where summer brings 24-hour daylight.
“So they’re gonna be more at risk of cancer issues, eye issues and that sort of thing,” she said.
Albinism is a recessive trait, meaning both parents must carry the gene. Lieske said that raises the possibility that other carriers are in the herd.
“It’s also possible that it happens more often than we think,” she said. “Because they’re at risk of increased predation and they may have other health issues, they may not survive, and so we may be missing it.”
‘Let it be a normal caribou’
State biologists did not collar the calf or its mother for radio tracking, so they have no way of knowing if the calf is still alive. But Pruszenski said there is one hopeful sign.
“It’s getting pretty snowy up north, so that might help it along its survival journey, hiding from predators at least,” Pruszenski said.
Fish and Game isn’t sharing the name of the herd to keep people from going to look for the calf. In the fall of 2023, a white raven that showed up in Anchorage drew so many onlookers, it spawned what some called the “white raven paparazzi.”
Low-flying planes and helicopters can stress caribou. According to the National Park Service, caribou in the Western Arctic Herd tend to flee from planes more often than caribou that are more used to them, and that could harm the animals.
“If you happen to see it, it’d be great to let us know,” Pruszenski said. “ But what we don't really want is people to really be sort of trying to bother this caribou. We want to be able to give it its best shot, which will be to kind of just let it be a normal caribou.”
Pruszenski said she’s rooting for the calf, and biologists plan to document the sighting in a scientific journal.
