Everyone has heard of an albino or piebald deer. These rare animals are seen every season across North America and a few hunters are lucky enough to harvest one of these uncommon color phases. However, a lack of pigmentation can affect many species of animals including turkeys.
Most white turkeys you will see are domestic animals being raised in pens. However, the hunters behind the YouTube channel Running Wild Outdoors discovered a full white "Ghost" Tom that was regularly hanging out on public land in Tennessee.
The group of hunters formulates a plan of attack to harvest this bird and it ends up working to perfection. This ends up being a thrilling turkey hunt even if the animal in question wasn't one-of-a-kind.
What a thrilling hunt and an incredible bird to harvest. The fact that it all went down on public land just makes the harvest more impressive because that bird sticks out like a sore thumb. However, as you saw, it has a nice long beard and some impressive spurs. This was an animal that had survived in the wild for a while.
While the guys in this video call it an albino, this bird still has some pigment in the beard and the head and eyes. This turkey likely had leucism, which is similar, but more commonly results in animals that have parts of their bodies that are of a normal coloration. This condition is more commonly known as a "piebald." True albinos can be a bit rare. Still, you aren't going to encounter many lighter phase birds that are as white as this animal was.
We suppose there is a chance that this was a domesticated bird that escaped from captivity and was living in the wild. If it was, it seems to have adapted to the wild quite well and was even running around with other wild turkeys. Either way, it will make for one heck of a mount and a story to share with everyone who sees it.
We will be interviewing the hunters involved in this hunt. Keep an eye out for more details on the story behind this amazing bird here at Wide Open Spaces!
For more outdoor content from Travis Smola, be sure to follow him on Twitter and check out his Geocaching and Outdoors with Travis YouTube channels.
