![]() Plans to buy 4,700 acres (1,900 ha) of land to build an ethanol and biofuel electricity production center and to plant crops of willow trees and switch grass to be converted into fuel was proposed. The Five Points maximum security state prison was built on the eastern rim, and the former barracks on the northern tip was converted into housing for troubled teenagers. The depot land is New York's largest block of land available for development, and some new uses have been found for it. The visibility of white deer makes them easy prey for hunters and natural enemies like coyotes, and such a herd would not survive in the wild. Since the depot's closure in 2000, the future of the deer has been uncertain. Seneca White Deer were created through years of selective breeding within the depot to create an environment where they can flourish. The deer population has since grown to about 700 head, approximately 300 of which are white, making it the largest herd of white deer in the world. In the 1950s, the depot commander forbade GIs from shooting any white deer. Previously, the army has used hunting as one of the avenues to reduce the growing number of the Seneca White Deer, which was also an avenue of saving them by reducing their population and creating a sustainable number of Seneca White Deer. The case of the Seneca White Deer shows that human activity can have a significant impact on the environment and organisms. With inbreeding, it leaves recessive alleles of the white-tailed population to be expressed. While little is known about what caused leucism in the white-tailed deer, especially for this herd, researchers have noticed that its isolation causes high levels of inbreeding. These deer are not albino, but instead have leucism, which is an abnormal genetic condition that carries a set of recessive genes for all-white coats. When the 10,600-acre (43 km 2) depot was created in 1941, a 24-mile (39 km) fence was erected around its perimeter, isolating a small herd of white-tailed deer, some of which had white coats. The Seneca white deer are a rare herd of deer living within the confines of the former Seneca Army Depot in Seneca County, New York.
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