The other day, wildlife photographer Dennis Jackson went on a fishing trip with a friend in Ontario, Canada. While he and his friend were sitting in their boat, they noticed something unusual in the water.
“I look across the bay and I see something white swimming in the water,” Jackson told The Dodo. “And I’m like, ‘What the hell is that?'”
Jackson went through a mental checklist of who the white animal could be. It was too small to be a swan and didn’t look like a seagull. As he and his friend approached the mysterious creature, they realized something shocking. It was a beaver… with white fur.
“We had shivers down our spines, because it’s just something you never think you’ll see,” Jackson said.
Although Jackson is a wildlife photographer, he hadn’t packed his cameras for his fishing trip, but he managed to snap a few photos with his phone.
“He swam towards us, and then he swam the other way, and he was all around,” Jackson said. “We were just excited.”
After a while the white beaver disappeared. Jackson decided to return to the area with his photographic equipment to attempt to document the animal he had seen.
Fortunately, when Jackson returned, the white beaver was still there. He quickly took some photos and videos of the swimming animal. Jackson noted that the beaver’s unusual coloring did not seem to affect the animal’s behavior or how it was treated by other beavers.
Jackson didn’t know if the beaver was albino or leucistic, a different genetic disorder that indicates partial loss of pigmentation. Jackson consulted Canadian naturalist Michael Runtz, who concluded that the beaver is leucistic due to its dark eyes and legs.
“(Runtz) said…in all his years (as) a professor at Carleton University, he has never seen a white animal this big,” Jackson said.
Hearing that even a wildlife expert like Runtz was amazed by the beaver, Jackson felt even luckier to have seen such a special animal. Jackson was careful to keep the beaver safe by not sharing the location of the marsh with the public.
In Ontario, where Jackson lives, he sees beavers all the time. But witnessing such a unique-looking beaver gave him a renewed appreciation for the ubiquitous animals.
“It kind of inspired me to be more curious,” Jackson said.
