Rarity has its own unique beauty.
Last week, wildlife biologist Evan Phillips of Colorado Parks and Wildlife in Montrose, Colorado, spotted a piebald cow elk.
According to the CPW Southwest Region’s social media account on X, approximately one in 100,000 elk have the piebald trait.
“During a big game classification flight this week, Montrose area wildlife biologist Evan Phillips got a glimpse of a rare piebald cow elk! The piebald trait in elk occurs in about 1 out of every 100,000 animals,” CPW SW Region posted on Wednesday.
During a big game classification flight this week, Montrose area wildlife biologist Evan Phillips got a glimpse of a rare piebald cow elk! The piebald trait in elk occurs in about 1 out of every 100,000 animals. pic.twitter.com/5pFtvyd9RD
— CPW SW Region (@CPW_SW) December 6, 2023
Piebald animals have white patches — in some cases large ones — across skin with darker pigmentation.
According to The Guardian, scientists have long known that gene mutations caused the white patches, but only in 2016 did they develop a “mathematical model” to describe “the movement and growth of pigment cells when the animals are still growing in the womb.”
Also in 2016, Animal Crossings of Florida, Inc., announced an “Interactive Zoo” featuring the “World’s First Piebald Alligator.”
In short, piebaldism is so rare in some species that until recently scientists knew very little about it.
Phillips’ eagle-eyed glimpse of the piebald elk occurred during what CPW called a “big game classification flight.”
Earlier this month, CPW’s Montrose office sent out a news release alerting the public to low-flying helicopters. Throughout the winter, wildlife researchers planned to place GPS collars on 75 elk calves and 120 pregnant cow elk.
“CPW aims to understand calf survival and cause-specific mortality across different study areas in the state,” the press release read.
In other words, Phillips and his colleagues had difficult work to do. The piebald cow elk spotting occurred entirely by chance.
And what a chance spotting it was. According to the CPW, Colorado has the largest elk population in the world at more than 280,000 animals. Based on averages, that means that perhaps only three piebald cow elk exist in the entire state.
To the lay reader, of course, talk of a “mathematical model” and “cause-specific mortality” hardly conveys a sense of wonderment.
In its post, however, the CPW conveyed that sense with a phrase and an exclamation point: “glimpse of a rare piebald cow elk!”
That kind of excitement, even over an elk, has otherworldly origins. In fact, in the current context, the word “glimpse” carries immense and often unconscious power.
“All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of heaven — tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear,” legendary Christian author C.S. Lewis once wrote. Lewis, of course, saw those glimpses as evidence that, as he put it, “I was made for another world.”
The beauty found in rarity provides Lewis’ “hints of heaven,” for it reminds the viewer of God’s creation in ways that ordinary things could but too often do not.
