Brevard, North Carolina is home to the white squirrel (as well is being the “Land of Waterfalls”). In June I visited Brevard for the third time, hoping to spot a white squirrel for the first time! We were told to hang out on the lawn at the college in town and we would be sure to see some because there is a colony that lives there. We were told if we took nuts with us they would certainly come out. We took our take out dinner with us and set up shop eating and keeping an eye out for the little white rodents. While we ate we did not see any white squirrels, but a gray squirrel kept his eye on us! We decided to relocate to a different part of campus in hopes the illusive white ones would appear. We were about to give up and decide that white squirrels are a local myth when my sister in law pointed “Over there! There’s one!” Well, here he is.

It was easy to tell that this little guy was very comfortable with humans. I was able to get fairly close and use my zoom lens to get sharp close ups! As he heard the clicks of my camera he started looking in my direction and coming a bit closer before bounding off for more food. He was eating a mushroom in the first images below and if you look closely, you can see the remnants of his snack on his whiskers in the following pictures!

This guy was the only one we saw, but now that we have seen them with our own eyes, we know that white squirrels really are real and are not mythical creatures. I am including a little bit of the history about white squirrels and how they got to Brevard. This excerpt was taken from Heart of Brevard: https://www.brevardnc.org/white-squirrels/

Apparently, Brevard’s white squirrels originated from a carnival animal truck. According to Brevard resident Mrs. W.E. Mull, a pair of white squirrels was given to her brother-in-law, H.H. Mull, by Mr. Black of Madison, Florida, in 1949. A carnival truck had overturned near Black’s home and the squirrels were caught by Mr. Black when he observed them playing in his pecan grove.
Mull gave the critters to his niece, Barbara, who unsuccessfully tried to breed them. In 1951 she married and left home. Eventually, one of the white squirrels escaped and Mr. Mull soon let the other one go. Before long, the squirrels began breeding in the wild and appeared in several areas of town.
The white squirrels became so prized that the Brevard City Council voted to approve an ordinance declaring and establishing a sanctuary for squirrels, especially the white ones, in 1986. And that it “shall be unlawful for any person to hunt, kill, trap, or otherwise take any protected squirrels within the city by this section.”
Biologists recognize no known species of all-white squirrels in the world. The Brevard squirrels, with dark eyes and sometimes gray streaked fur, are not albinos==a condition in which an animal’s body has no melanin, a color pigment, resulting in white skin and fur, and pink or reddish eyes.
In addition to Brevard, white squirrels have been spotted in Olney, IL; Versailles, IL; Hodgenville, KY; Marionville, MO; Trenton, NJ (credit valleau here); Bloomfield, NY; Greenwood, SC; and Kenton, TN. But only Brevard holds an annual festival in their honor!