ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A rare herd of ghostly white deer kept mostly from public view for decades is no longer off-limits.
The herd at a former World War II Army weapons depot in upstate New York will be available for public viewing through bus tours slated to begin in the fall.
The dozens of white deer roaming the 7,000-acre Seneca Army Depot in the Finger Lakes have been tough to see for years, save for glimpses through the surrounding chain-link fence. But the nonprofit Seneca White Deer will offer bus tours starting in October under an agreement with the depot’s new owner, Earl Martin.
Dennis Money, president of Seneca White Deer, said Monday the tours will also tell the history of the depot, built in 1941 and closed in 2000. The sprawling site 40 miles southwest of Syracuse housed munitions in more than 500 igloo-like concrete bunkers, now overgrown with trees and wildflowers, and drew thousands of anti-nuclear protesters in 1983 for a summer-long Women’s Peace Encampment.
The white deer aren’t albinos but are a genetic variant of native white-tailed deer. They’re rare in the wild because their color makes them easy targets for predators and hunters, but a herd of as many as 200 developed over the years within the safety of the Army’s 24-mile-long perimeter fence.