The Legendary White Deer of Seneca Army Depot

This article was scraped from Rochester Subway. This is a blog about Rochester history and urbanism has not been published since 2017. The current owners are now publishing link spam which made me want to preserve this history.. The original article was published September 13, 2015 and can be found here.

     The following is a guest post submitted by       Matthew Ehlers      .
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For years I've wanted to camp overnight near the     Seneca Army Depot

and see if I could get some photos of the famed Seneca White Deer. Finally, I decided it was worth getting up before sunrise and just driving out     there

. The morning had perfect conditions. Hazy clouds extended the sunrise until at least 7:30 AM. Prime time activity for the deer population...

From     SenecaWhiteDeer.org

- "The white deer found at Seneca Army Depot are a natural variation of the white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), which normally have brown coloring. The Seneca White Deer are leucistic, meaning they lack all pigmentation in the hair but have the normal brown-colored eyes. Albino deer, which lack only the pigment melanin, have pink eyes and are extremely rare. The Seneca White Deer interbreed freely with the brown deer in the former Depot and appear to share the habitat equally."

   I was surprised to discover how open the facility was. The only deterrent it seemed was the trespassing signs. According to the     Democrat & Chronicle

, "during the cold war the depot held the largest stockpile of Army nuclear weapons in the country."

Thus the tight security.

   The facility closed in 1995.

   Along 96 South I discovered a huge part of the fence was knocked down. Probably a car accident since a road dead-ends directly across from the break in the fence. Certainly, the white deer could exit easily from here.

The area is also home to a charming variety of wildlife.

   My girlfriend Jessica and I found a good spot near the long chain-link fence just past a long stretch of train tracks. Not sure what we have here... Perhaps a fox or a stray dog.

   It was at that moment that Jessica alerted me to a buck, which I didn't get to see. But soon after, a single white doe crossed the road. Happy to have gotten to see one my first time out.

   In late 2016, the Army Corpse of Engineers, who maintain the fence around the Seneca Army Depot, will complete their environmental cleanup of the site.

   At that time, the fence that has protected the Seneca White Deer population for half a century will likely be removed, leaving the future of the herd in doubt.    * * *

Additional Information

Seneca White Deer Inc.

(SWD) works to preserve the unique wildlife and military history of the former Seneca Army Depot through conservation, tourism and economic development.     Learn what you can do to help.

According to SWD no tours of the Depot are scheduled for this year or any time in the future. The Seneca County Industrial Development Agency (IDA), which controls access to the Depot, has turned down repeated requests saying they will no longer permit short-term use of the Depot. The IDA has not allowed anyone access to the Depot to photograph or video the deer or other wildlife for several years.

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