Blue Springs hunter, 7, bags rare all-white wild turkey
Chayson Emmons, a 7-year-old from Blue Springs, was worried that he might have shot a white duck during his Saturday turkey hunt.
When Emmons, who had help from his adult hunting guides, got closer to his kill, he noticed mostly white feathers, but the black beard of a gobbler.
The child's first turkey harvest was soon confirmed to be a rare all-white leucistic bird, which had been seen in the Settle's Ford area in recent years.
“All-white leucistic birds are extremely rare, only one or two are reported each year or two,” Missouri Department of Conservation scientist Nick Oakley said in a news release. “The white coloration is caused by a lack of pigmentation in the feathers due to a genetic condition.”
Leucism is a different pigmentation condition than albinism.
A .410 turkey shotgun was used to take down the wild bird, which the Emmons family sent to a taxidermist. MDC reported 2,550 wild turkeys were bagged throughout the state during the youth turkey hunting weekend.
Emmons' father, David Emmons, and a family friend Justin Youngblood used turkey calls to draw the birder closer to the young hunter before giving him the OK to shoot.
Oh my goodness,” Chayson Emmons told the MDC. “I thought, I may never see that again.”
MDC Cass County Agent Landon Leonard issued the boy a Sonic Drive-In citation good for one cream, a treat given to youth hunters caught practicing good behaviors in the outdoors.
This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Blue Springs hunter, 7, bags rare all-white turkey.
