Albino raccoon

This not a fox but rather a rare albino raccoon that lives in the woods of Rockledge, Florida. A local woman has been lobbying for the zoo to capture it for its own protection.

Michelle Smurl, Brevard Zoo's director of animal programs, said the zoo is not at liberty to trap an adult animal that is thriving in the wild. She viewed photos of the animal and confirmed that it is a white raccoon.

"The raccoon looks healthy, and it looks like it's doing well," Smurl said. "I grew up with white squirrels up in New York, and I was worried that someone was going to shoot them."

Woman fears for albino raccoon's safety (via Fortean Times)

• [ttcfcl]

  Raccoons are awesome. They look really funny without their stripey tails or masks!

• [McBobbo]

  @9 – Newcastle Island – I was going to mention the raccoons there too.

  Newcastle Island is an historical island park, btw. Great field trips there growing up.

  I don’t remember ‘white’ albino raccoons, but these orange ones. No black noses, as #17 said.

  We saw a couple orange ones on a school trip, and one that looked much whiter (young maybe). Cool funky markings on one of the raccoons I saw: shades-of-orange stripes.

  I was told there was a high incidence of albinism (sp?) because the population was limited on the island (lots of chances for recessive genes).

  Right up there with the huge rabbit population and overly tame wildlife for cuteness.

• [McBobbo]

  Thar we go. Newcastle raccoons. The site calls them golden raccoons.

  “Essentially” albino, whatever that means. Not truly albino, maybe? No picture though.

  http://www.newcastleisland.ca/the-wildlife.php

• [Connie H.]

  Note that a Floridian raccoon is not going to have much call for white camouflage….

• [Anonymous]

  I saw the story about this FEMALE raccoon last night on Animal Planet’s “Weird True & Freaky” series featuring albino animals. They said that the raccoon wasn’t really an albino, but I forgot the name they gave it explaining the white pelt and black nose/eyes. Anyone know of the name? >_<

• [Modusoperandi]

  Sure, you think it’s cute now. You’re all “Ooo. Ahh.”, then boom, it steals your soul.

• [Sean Grimm]

  If there is a unique or strange looking animal there is someone willing to shoot it and stuff it and hang it on their wall and show it to their friends. I hope this little guy comes out ahead of the odds.

  Wow I’m depressing. Raccoons have been my favorite animals since childhood. I had several stuffed animal versions of them and then my parents bought me a raccoon fur hat, which still disturbs me. “Our boy loves raccoons, lets get him a dead one made into a hat!”

  • [Anonymous]

    I was laughing so hard, the comment about the dr being raised by the white squirrles was awesome, it was stupid, but it made my day lighter!

  • [Anonymous]

    I was laughing so hard, the comment about the dr being raised by the white squirrles was awesome, it was stupid, but it made my day lighter!

• [Takuan]

  raccoons, all cute and cuddly until you try to mate with them.

• [Anonymous]

  We have one of these in Isla Vista. It’s become nearly mythological

• [lentil]

  Looks like a dancer to me.

  

• [The Unusual Suspect]

  We used to have a population of albino squirrels in Bell Trinity Park, in Toronto. Haven’t seen them in a while, though.

• [Violent Quiche]

  I find it interesting that the zoo director was raised by white squirrels up in New York. Down here in Georgia, when parents dump their unwanted young in the woods the squirrels just point and laugh, then leave you for dead.

• [Anonymous]

  Just FYI, that isn’t any *albino*. The definition of albino (according to dictionary.com) is: “a person with pale skin, light hair, pinkish eyes, and visual abnormalities resulting from a hereditary inability to produce the pigment melanin.”

  As you can see, this raccoon has pigment in its black nose, where a true albino would have no pigment and therefore a pink nose. As the owner of white boxer dogs, I have repeatedly explained to people how my dogs aren’t albinos (as they have brown eyes, pigmented noses, etc). It is the expression of some double-recessive piebald (or “white spotting”) genes that causes this coloring. These genes, when normall expressed, are the ones that allow for some white to be present (like in a raccoon). When these genes are hyper-expressed, this is when you get a raccoon like this (or white cat, squirrel, rabbit, Dalmatian, boxer, Boston terrier, etc).

• [AndyDoan]

  He’s a video of a whole family of captive bred albinos in a Ontario zoo.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UBL_MTKHnI

• [tinyhonkshus]

  We have a white skunk in our backyard. It’s pretty awesome too.

• [The Lizardman]

  @12

  Good point as well

  @13

  The lack of fear of people (though raccoons do tend to be a curious animal without too much fear of humans to begin with) probably corresponds with their heaviness – eating (and overeating) from trash and other human sources. Like humans, other animals will trend to obesity as their diet gets infused with overabundant junk

• [Antinous]

  That is one skinny raccoon. Are they always that thin in the south or is he undernourished?

• [Anonymous]

  People tend to forget albinism has some positive traits towards survival, such as snow camo, and I doubt that all of them go mateless if it even plays into that.

  It certainly doesn’t need to be placed in a zoo where it will not procreate naturally if at all. I wonder how many crank calls Zoos get anyway, telling them to pick up stray dogs and cats around the neighborhood.

  Hey Zoo, you need some Possum and newt and pigeon in there, all you got is them circus animals.

  Actually, now that I think of it, I know of a zoo that keeps goats, in a petting farm.

• [dculberson]

  So freakin’ cute.

• [Ugly Canuck]

  A spirit raccoon.

• [ill lich]

  Put it in a zoo for it’s own protection?

  Jeez. If that woman has kids I feel sorry for them.

• [Anonymous]

  The world’s largest population of albino raccoons is on New Castle Island off the coast of Nanaimo located on Vancouver Island, BC. There’s a whole slew of them and are so mischievous lockers for campers were installed to protect their food and backpacks at night. This is a sustained population as they live in isolation with no predators.

• [Keeper of the Lantern]

  Damn that racoon would look great on my mantle. And in just that pose, too.

• [Anonymous]

  It’s not albino, if it were it would have a pink nose and red eyes – it still creates melanin like most animals. It is however, a white phase raccoon, just like polar bears are genetically brown bears (recent mutation and isolation) but have colorless hairs and black skin.

  - Ethel

• [The Lizardman]

  @5

  Looks reasonably healthy to me. Raccoons shouldn’t be fat, but the ones most people see are ones that are living off human garbage and tend towards obesity. Wild populations are often trimmer.

• [claud9999]

  She should call a pest control company and have them bring out a humane (read: keeps the animal alive) trap…Then take it to an animal rescue.

  We had a squirrel get trapped in an office building…animal rescue wouldn’t deal with it, but they referred us to an exterminator. The guy shows up with a cool-ass dog that was bred by Brits to go after rats. Never saw a squirrel run so fast…And the dog was RIGHT BEHIND it.

• [prom77]

  Antinous @5
  The Lizardman @11

  Could also be a juvenile.

  • [Antinous]

    The ones here all seem to weigh forty pounds and certainly have no fear of people.

• [sbarnes2]

  What a beautiful animal! It is too bad they can’t take it to the zoo- there it would be both protected from hunters and the most people could enjoy its beauty.

• [sammich]

  If they do capture it, could they not just give it a dye-job and re-release it?