Famous albino squirrels have quite an odd tail

Peo­ple say they’ve been in Ober­lin since the 70s, but it hasn’t been until that last few years that they’ve qui­etly gained an almost rock star sta­tus. Stores around town are sell­ing T-shirts, post­cards, and even plush ver­sions of them; they even have a drink named after them.

They’re the white squir­rels of Ober­lin, com­monly seen on Tap­pan Square frol­ick­ing by them­selves or with their gray counterparts.

“I think they’re adorable,” said Alexis Gee, a stu­dent at Ober­lin Col­lege. “I think they’re funny and really social ani­mals, which is really nice.”

Ober­lin cer­tainly isn’t the only place to have a pop­u­la­tion of white squir­rels. There are, in fact, at least five com­mu­ni­ties across North Amer­ica that claim to be the “Home of the White Squirrels.”

The squir­rels are seri­ous busi­ness in these towns, some of which dis­play them proudly on their police uni­forms, have parades, and have laws against trap­ping and sell­ing, and even give the squir­rels the right of way on streets.

Mar­i­onville, Mo. goes even fur­ther with their rev­er­ence for the snowy rodents. When one of the white squir­rels in the town meets its demise, the more intact ones are put on ice and sent to a taxi­der­mist to be stuffed and put on display.

This has even led to what some have termed the “squir­rel wars.”

Res­i­dents of Mar­i­onville claim that Olney, Ill. kid­napped some of the white squir­rels from their town years ago which is the only rea­son they can claim to have them.

In com­par­i­son to these other com­mu­ni­ties, Oberlin’s boast­ing of white squir­rels seems rather sub­dued. Lor­raine Mor­ri­son, owner of Car­lyle Gift and Flower Shop, thinks she knows why this is the case.

“I don’t think we have enough,” she said. “I think these other towns have dozens. We have, I think, six, but I don’t know for sure. I’ve lost count.”

Mor­ri­son said she and oth­ers in the com­mu­nity do com­mu­ni­cate with the other towns that have white squir­rels because they all have to stick together.

No one is quite sure just how many white squir­rels live in Ober­lin these days. Depend­ing on who you ask, the num­ber can range from three to six of the furry phenoms.

Ma’ayan Plaut, a grad­u­ate of Ober­lin Col­lege who now works as the college’s social media coor­di­na­tor said she has seen as many as five at the same time.

Most peo­ple asso­ciate the squir­rels with Tap­pan Square, but many are now report­ing them in other places around town, lead­ing many to think the pop­u­la­tion is slowly growing.

While the city may not be overly vocal about their rare trea­sure, the white squir­rels are being embraced by stu­dents at the col­lege, as well as by Ober­lin Col­lege itself.

Mor­ri­son said that many of the recre­ation sports teams at the col­lege have adopted the white squir­rels as their team mas­cot. A search for Ober­lin on Twit­ter will bring up numer­ous users who have a pic­ture of one of the squir­rels as their avatar.

Ober­lin Col­lege now dis­plays the white squir­rel on their web­site. Click­ing on the pic­ture takes the user to the envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­ity page where a squir­rel helps mon­i­tor the energy con­sump­tion for the college’s many build­ings across campus.

The admis­sions depart­ment has even started using the white squir­rel in their cor­re­spon­dence with prospec­tive students.

For now, though, it seems the white squir­rels will remain Oberlin’s lit­tle secret. Gee thinks this is just fine.

“I really like how quiet it is, because it’s a thing that almost feels solely for the town. To parade them around, like some of the other towns do, is kind of strange,” she said.

For more infor­ma­tion on Oberlin's white squir­rels, be sure to pick up the May 17 issue of the Ober­lin News-Tribune. Inside are arti­cles about the debate on whether or not the squir­rels are truly albi­nos, as well as a story about Albus the Squir­rel, who is quickly gain­ing pop­u­lar­ity around town.

Posted by Scott Mahoney on May 17 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.