Purple squirrel baffles Pennsylvania
A distinctly unconventional squirrel has baffled observers in the small town of New Jersey, Pennsylvania due to its inexplicable purple colour. Although grey, black and albino white squirrels have all been spotted in the region, purple is a colour seldom seen in squirrels (leading to the slang term 'purple squirrel' to describe an improbably well-qualified job candidate) but not actually unprecedented. A purple squirrel was sighted near an English school in 2008, for example, but this was believed to be due to an otherwise normal animal coming into contact with abandoned printer cartridges.
Resident Percy Emert caught the squirrel in a trap using peanuts as bait with the intention of releasing it a suitable distance from his home to prevent it from eating all of the nuts in the bird-feeders he hangs around his garden. He and his wife Connie photographed the specimen in captivity, uploaded the images to Facebook, and set it free. The pictures made their way to the AccuWeather website and duly went viral. The squirrel now has its own Facebook page and has acquired some 3800 fans at the time of writing.
Samples of fur that were left in the cage and some tail trimmings that the Emerts collected have been handed over to the Pennsylvania Game Commission, who investigated the case on the suspicion that the squirrel had been exposed to some sort of potentially hazardous chemical. However, Warden Harold Cole has announced that the case will not be pursued any further and the samples will not be analysed on the grounds that the squirrel, other than being purple, appears perfectly well. "The squirrel looks healthy in the picture there, except that he doesn't want to be in that cage," said Mr Cole.
Mr Cole was not able to offer a definite answer for why the squirrel is that colour, but did speculate that the squirrel could have been dyed to keep track of it (which is illegal under Pennsylvania law) or that something in its diet (such as the local pokeberries, something with purple food colouring, or some manner of industrial compound) caused the change in colour.
With Strangles Awareness Week just around the corner (5-11 May), vets are being encouraged to share a survey about the disease with their horse-owning clients.
