Rare white squirrel spotted in Winnipeg

A Winnipeg woman discovered a white squirrel in her backyard. A U of M professor explains the reason for its appearance.

A Winnipeg woman was in for a surprise earlier this week when she spotted an unlikely visitor in her south Winnipeg yard.

Roberta Rackal said she was scrolling through Facebook on Wednesday morning when she saw a post about a white squirrel sighting on the Manitoba Birding page.

Much to her surprise, when she went to her kitchen about half an hour later, she spotted one of these rare animals under the spruce tree in her yard.

“It’s not banded or marked, but as far as I know there’s only one (white squirrel),” she said in an interview on Friday. “It’s the first time I’ve ever seen one.”

According to Colin Garroway, an associate professor in the U of M’s department of biological sciences, the squirrel Rackal spotted was an American red squirrel with a colour morph.

He explained these white squirrels tend to be rare because they stand out more easily to predators and also because the colour comes from a recessive gene.

“That means probably lots of these recessive genes for whiteness are in the population, relatively speaking…But they’re only expressed when you get, just by chance, one from mom and one from dad.”

Garroway noted although albino squirrels exist, the one in Rackal’s yard is “almost certainly not” albino, as they typically have a pinkish tint to their eyes.

“Being albino is a lack of pigment. So, I think what you’re seeing when the eyes look red is like you’re seeing a full lack of pigment behind the eyes,” he said.

“Albino squirrels see poorly. But this is just a whitish colour morph of a red squirrel.”

Rackal said the white squirrel did return to her home throughout the day on Wednesday, adding it also paid her some visits on both Thursday and Friday.