‘Mutant’ white squirrels cause a stir in Florida

MELBOURNE, Fla. — Near the end of her Sunday morning run, Indialantic resident Katrina Wasson spotted a strange snow-white animal — a squirrel! — patrolling the grass.

Wasson gasped, grabbed her phone, and snapped photos of the ghostly rodent.

"At the same instant, it stopped to look at me like, 'What are you doing?'" Wasson said.

White squirrel sightings near Indialantic and beachside Melbourne on Florida’s east coast may be on the rise, said Penny Shellhorn-Schutt, co-administrator of the Facebook group "Indialantic: Our Little Barrier Island," which has nearly 1,200 members.

Earlier this month, Shellhorn-Schutt took three pictures of a pale squirrel chewing a peanut in a tree. She posted the peculiar photos under this caption: "Elusive white Indialantic squirrel sighting!"

Adventurous Ace heading 1,000 miles home to Texas

"People don't believe it. They think they're fake pictures. But they're out there," Shellhorn-Schutt said.

"One day I was on the computer, and one of the white squirrels had climbed on the screen window. I heard some strange sound, and I turned around — and it shocked me," she said.

"We want to make sure nobody harms them. They always make you smile when you see them. It adds a boost to your day whenever you see them. They're so unusual. I'm surprised that they're able to survive out there — white on green," she said.

Keith Winsten, executive director of the Brevard Zoo, expressed surprise that white squirrels inhabit the barrier island.

"I've never seen them or heard of them in Brevard County. That doesn't mean they're not there, but I've never heard of them. It could be a white squirrel that's been introduced from another area, but it's more likely a mutation," he said.

Winsten said melanistic, or all-black, squirrels are common in the Northeast, where they thrive because their dark fur absorbs heat during winter months. However, their white counterparts are less tolerant of cold temperatures, and their ivory coats do not blend into their surroundings.

The squirrel that Wasson photographed was not an albino. Rather, it had a gray-furred face.

Here's an odd geographic twist: White variants of the eastern gray squirrel are common in and around Brevard, N.C., a small city about 30 miles south of Asheville on the outskirts of the Pisgah National Forest.

That Brevard hosts the annual White Squirrel Festival, a three-day concert that features a white squirrel photo contest and the White Squirrel 5K and 10K races.