It’s not just any old Thursday, Asheville. It’s National Squirrel Appreciation Day. Launched on this date in 2001, it was created by wildlife rehabilitationist + Ashevillian Christy Hargrove. While I love all these bushy-tailed rodents, I am partial to WNC’s mythical + rare white squirrels. Roughly only a dozen spots in the country — including Brevard, about 35 miles Southeast of Asheville — can boast that they have white squirrel colonies. The pale-toned critters are so popular and iconic, the town even has an annual festival in their honor and an ambassador white squirrel, Pisgah Pete, who annually predicts the number of weeks of winter remaining, as well as the winner of the Super Bowl.
So where did these extraordinary squirrels come from? Legend has it that they descended from an escaped Florida carnival squirrel in 1949. They began popping up across Brevard and became so prized that Brevard City Council voted in 1986 to establish a sanctuary for them, as well as a protective ordinance making it “unlawful for any person to hunt, kill, trap or otherwise take any protected squirrels within the city.” The town has even celebrated Groundhog Day (Feb. 2) as “White Squirrel Day” since 2014.
Brevard even has a White Squirrel Institute, established in 1997 by biologist Robert Glesner. Originally launched as a long-term study of the town’s white squirrel population by students, it was continued by Glesner as a way to ensure the population continues to grow and learn as much as possible about these elusive creatures.
There are 200 squirrel species, which are categorized into three types.Those are further divided into many squirrel varieties. DYK most of the area’s white squirrels are not entirely white, but have a gray patch on top of their heads and a gray stripe running down their spines? This means WNC’s white squirrels aren’t albinos (i.e., devoid of pigment), but rather offshoots of the more common Eastern Gray Squirrel.
Coolest of all? You can “adopt” a white squirrel through the White Squirrel Institute, and fees go to help protect + conserve the ivory-hued creatures.
