Are There White Moose in Maine?
The other day when I was doing my nightly pre-bed scroll through Twitter, I came upon a magnificent video that I felt the need to share with many of my friends, especially Mainers.
The video was posted by How_Things_Work and it was a stunning moose going for a dip in a river, then shaking itself dry, and continuing on with its day.
Sounds ordinary and maybe even boring but what was so spectacular about this special video was that the moose was white.
Completely and entirely white.
Isn’t that just remarkable? Every inch of that moose is white, antlers included. It is so beautiful to look at. I can't even imagine seeing this beauty in person, so it’s super cool that the video is so up close and personal.
Have you ever seen a white moose before, whether in person or on the internet? This was my first time ever seeing a moose that was completely white all over, even just on my phone.
I immediately sent it to some of my Maine friends who I knew would be in awe of it because, without much thought, we immediately think about Maine when we see a moose.
But then I got to thinking, does Maine even have white moose? I know we can have animals that happen to have the mutation to be albino but after a quick Google search, a white moose isn’t due to albinism.
What Causes a Moose to be White?
As the tweet shares, this extremely rare color effect is due to a genetic mutation.
Having seen my first-ever white moose on my phone, I quickly moved tabs over to Google to find out where you even find these beautiful beasts.
National Geographic shared an article about white moose and that’s how I learned that a white moose is not always due to it being albino.
According to the article, most moose with bright white fur adorn an all-white appearance due to a feature from a recessive gene that causes the animal to grow white with specks of brown, a condition known as piebald.
Where do White Moose Live?
The most important question this video leaves you with is, where the heck do you find a white moose? Do we have them here in Maine?
I’m sure we have an albino moose running around here somewhere but the white moose with the piebald condition has been seen in Norway, Sweden, Alaska, and Canada, according to National Geographic.
They’ve been spotted a few times in Ontario so maybe one will wonder its way over to the Pine Tree State.
Have you ever seen one? If so, where was it?