Rare White Squirrel Calls Old Town Alexandria Home
Neighbors Report Other White Squirrels in Same Area
ALEXANDRIA, VA – A healthy-seeming white squirrel lives in the trees near South Alfred and Wolfe Streets in Old Town Alexandria. Resident Chris Galla posted to the Unseen Old Town Facebook group a photo of the alabaster-furred fella perched on a branch, its pink eyes gleaming clearly. White squirrels are a rare color variant of the Eastern Gray Squirrel.
Albino squirrels are pure white with pink or blue eyes, pink noses, and pink skin. The chances of one being born is approximately 1 in 100,000.
Yet, those odds might be skewed when it comes to this particular White Squirrel Family Tree. In 2023, another member of the same Facebook group, Charlene Vivian Towle, posted two photos of white squirrels in the same location (South Alfred and Wolfe Streets), with the caption, “There are at least three of them. Saw same guy today, and these two a bit further on.”
“The scarcity of albino squirrels is thought to be at least partially linked to the animal’s lack of any dark eye pigment: This leaves them more susceptible to the harmful effects of sun rays, which can permanently damage their eyes. In turn, their poor eyesight makes them more likely to suffer injury and death by falling out of trees,” writes Terry W. Johnson in an article on the Georgia Natural Resources website.
They are also rare because they exist against the odds–it’s hard to hide from prey when you are white. Mammologists report that many don’t live long for that reason.
However, white squirrels can be tourist gold.
Johnson adds, “More often than not, when white squirrels appear, people roll out the red carpet for them. In Olney, Ill., a city ordinance protecting [white] squirrels has been on the books since 1902…Some communities have learned that white squirrels often mean tourist dollars. For example, Brevard, N.C., has an annual White Squirrel Festival. Other cities that boast white squirrel colonies and capitalize on them include Kenton, Tenn.; Marionville, Mo.; Olney, Ill and Exeter in Ontario, Canada.
There are sites dedicated to white squirrel mapping, and The Washington Post reported in 2019 about one man in Charlotte, NC, Rob Nelson, who is tracking white squirrels nationwide.
So you never know, maybe one day Old Town will have its own White Squirrel Festival, or start calling attention to these little white superstars. How about an Alexandria-based band called the White Squirrels, or a new beer out of the local Port City Brewing or Aslin Beer Company called Old Town White Squirrel?
As a start Alexandria might lure a few scientists to town to determine what kind of rare colony exists there on South Alfred Street. Until then, keep taking pictures and report them to Rob Nelson, and post them to Unseen Old Town!
