Black In Business

I grew up in upstate New York in an area with a lot of trees. Squirrels were common place. In my backyard in Cook County, IL, squirrels are common place. Squirrels are grey, some may be brown but on Saturday, I saw a black squirrel! I had to look twice, maybe it was another rodent, a rat but I saw the bushy tail. I wanted to ask the squirrel,” hey brother, how do the grey squirrels treat you.I notice you are by yourself, do you have friends?”

It was just a squirrel trying to get a nut! This black squirrel cause me to think like Rodney King, can’t we all just get along. For blackinbusiness a black squirrel is a metaphor representing the struggle we face in business. Beautiful but not quite right. Is something wrong with a black Squirrel? How about a black in business. There is nothing wrong with a black in business as long as we fit in. Here are my questions for the black squirrel.

How do you feel being different, are you as good, do grey squirrels treat you different, do the women squirrels hold their bags when they see you, do they run to the other side of the road, do younger less qualified squirrels get promoted over you, do other black squirrels accuse you of acting grey if you work too hard, speak proper or get good grades.Do you sleep with grey squirrels, are you happy, do you have to be twice as good, Is it hard to get loans for your squirrel business, can a black squirrel be president of the squirells.

This is silly, a squirrel is a squirell, color does not matter. Ok what about a businessman, does color matter? Have you ever seen a black squirrel. There is a message here somewhere. Check out below for some nation wide sightings. It of interest the black squirrels are called over aggresive and one man wants to shoot one. Maybe we do have the same issues.

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Amazing Squirrel Stories
Perhaps it’s a search engine convergence on our White Squirrel Wars, or our Pet Cemetery tribute to Shorty the Squirrel. Why do we get mail about squirrels? We can’t explain it.

Yes — we know lots of towns have black squirrels! A sampling…
A black squirrel, Council Bluffs, IA — captured on Craig’s White/Black Squirrel Quest.
“Tourist attractions and photography are my hobbies, and they fit together well. A July 4th journey to Graceland afforded me the opportunity to see and photograph white squirrels in both Olney, Illinois, and Kenton, Tennessee.

“Squirrels towns provide great opportunities for wildlife photography (although I wouldn’t call the squirrels in Olney wild). Just bring a long zoom lens and be prepared to hike through someone’s yard.”
[Craig S. Thom, 8/11/97]

Aggressive Screen-munching Squirrels.
I live in Katonah, New York. about 50 miles north of the Bronx Zoo where I hear there are black squirrels. I have three in my yard. Recently I have had three occurrences of squirrels eating through my screens, eating a loaf of bread, having the run of the house … and leaving. I have come face to face with a black squirrel with very bright blue eyes at dawn. I am considering getting a 22 and shooting this particular squirrel. A local wildlife guy thinks I’m crazy — that there are no black squirrels in this area, but I’ve lived here all my life and this is not a grey squirrel. I have three small children and am a little more than annoyed. The last time the food source was 20 feet away from the screen, and still they came. This is also in the middle of the summer in 80/90 degree heat. There should be enough food outside.

Have you heard of this kind of intrusion? If I hire a trapper, how can I tell them I know which squirrels to get and where? Once, they came in while the TV was on — six feet away. This is way over-aggressive for me. [MaryEllen, 8/9/97]

Squirrels of the North.
More White Squirrel Wars: I lived in Exeter, Ontario, Canada and its claim to fame is also “Home of the White Squirrel.” There are many of them running about this town of 3700 people. [Donna, 6/11/97]

Collegiate Squirrels.
THE BLACK SQUIRRELS OF SYRACUSE,NY — Incredibly large from feasting on college student trash…rumor has it that they escaped from one of the science labs at the University. As far as I know, no one has lauded them as a tourist attraction yet. Everyone’s too busy with the Orangemen. [S. Peoria Burr, 3/29/97]

Island of mysterious squirrels.
Diamond Island, an 80 acre island in the middle of Diamond Lake near Cassopolis in southwest Michigan (20 miles north of exit 92 off the Indiana Toll Road ( I-80), is rife with black squirrels. There are loads of black walnut trees on the island so I leave it to your imagination as to how the black squirrels got there in the first place. [SSderby, 3/20/97]

College prank run amok!
Many years ago, (who knows when) some students from Kent State university in Kent Ohio, went to Niagara Falls and brought back a few of the black squirrels which are so abundant up there. The few they brought back multiplied and still thrive on the campus of Kent State and the surrounding community. These squirrels are definitely black although they may be of a diferent breed or strain than the one you mention. Sure would like to get them established in my area which is about 30 miles from Kent State! I really liked seeing them up in Toronto and Niagara. [Dave Bowman, 3/1/97]

Escape from a military base.
I just wanted to let you know that black squirrels are also rampant in the Quad-Cities (Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa and Rock Island and Moline, Illinois). The legend is these squirrels were given to the head of Arsenal Island in Rock Island (a military base). Supposedly, these squirrels escaped from the island and populated the surrounding area. This area also has a large red and gray squirrel population. The black squirrels survive despite their relative smaller size. [Kelly Tschantz, 9/2/97]

Destroying our cable tv infrastructure.
Auburn, IN, is overrun with black squirrels. I was a reporter there a few years ago and was told by a cable TV worker that squirrels gnawing on cables was the cause of most customer complaints there — no pic, ghosting, etc. I got a fun story by talking to workers who spent their time repairing squirrel damage — cable, phone, electric, etc. Typical sentiments among these workers were fantasies of shooting every squirrel in town, setting traps, poisoning them all, etc. Of course, the squirrels still rule. [Scott Gilbert, 9/2/97]

Nyeh, nyeh.
Just another reason why Michigan State is superior to the University of Michigan, MSU has its own population of mysterious black squirrels roaming the campus. [Christopher Murray, 11/2/97]

Last I knew, there was a fairly sizable population of black squirrels in Amherst, MA, particularly on the Amherst College campus (this was back 1987-1991). I also spotted one in Concord, MA just the other day… [Michelle, 1/10/98]

Goodbye, red and gray squirrels.
Kent, Ohio, Kent State University. Wow! There are so many black squirrels, there is no hope for red and gray squirrels to survive! Their antics are hilarious, and sometimes dangerous (when they fall out of the big trees.) Noisy and prolific little buggers and a curse to those who feed birds. [Susan 5/25/98]

Black is friendlier?
I’m from Albion Michigan and currently live in Battle Creek MI. There are black squirrels in both towns. I actually saw a map once in an old book that showed black squirrel populations throughout the U.S. If my memory serves there were any number of banded areas depicted on the map throughout the northern midwest. One of the larger areas was southern MI. I heard they were imported to control the red (or was it grey?) squirrel. Well I actually have all three colors in my yard though black is more prevalent. I don’t know if its because they’re more prevalent but when someone talks about a “tame” squirrel (i.e. eating very close to them or eating out of their hands) it always seems to be a black squirrel. Maybe they’re friendlier? [Mary, 5/28/98]

In Ontario, it’s NORMAL.
Black squirrels are the ‘normal color’ of squirrels in Ontario and Quebec. There are some greys, and some in-between, but black squirrels are VERY common here. [Anne Hollingworth, 5/28/98]

Escape from a hurricane.
I live in a little town called Douglasville Ga.. I have heard of the black squirrel from a friend who first saw them in a little town in Fla. years a few years ago. They thought they had escaped during the hurricane that destroyed part of the zoo there. A few minutes ago we saw one down the road in our town , and it was a weird experience. Have you heard of any more in the state of Georgia? [wallene, 5/30/98]

One particular street.
There are black squirrels in Norwalk, Ohio. Everytime we go there we see them on one particular street! Have never seen them anywhere else, we ALWAYS look for them everytime we are driving on that street, and hardly ever fail to see one!! [6/13/98]

Science run amok!
I lived from 1969 to 1991 in East Lansing, Michigan, and we had quite a large population of black squirrels. The “word” on them: a Michigan State University scientist had imported them from a native habitat (somewhere?) for study during the 1920s. Several escaped from his lab, and formed a local breeding population. The black squirrels’ range is fairly small … neighboring Lansing, Michigan has only the usual Michigan brown squirrels. The black squirrels are only about half the size of the brown squirrels, and appear not to interbreed. [Dan Wardlow, 8/22/98]

Escape from China…or Hawaii.
I’m from Australia and my husband and I have just visited the town of Brevard near the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina where they have at least 250 white squirrels at the last count 2 yrs ago. They’re meant to be non-albino too. I’ve heard of two stories as to how they got there: one is that they came from China from an original pair which escaped its owners and then multiplied; the second is that they’re from a pair that came from an island off Hawaii from some travelling circus. Ummh. Wonder which story is true? [Barbara Hasslacher, 11/12/98]

Not a skunk.
We live in a rural area of North Florida and encountered our first black squirrel today. It was so unusual to us, we stopped to look. He was solid black with a white nose and a tuft of white hair on his tail (no it was NOT a skunk!). This is an area where there are a number of pine forests, so we assume this is a black Fox Squirrel, a species whose primary food source is pine nuts or seed.

Imagine my surprise to find this website with all the stories of black squirrels. We thought this was a rarity, since we’ve lived here all our lives and never seen one! [Cass and Petey (sisters), 11/14/98]

Disbelief in Appleton, Wisconsin.
I drive my children to school every day along a route that roughly follows the Fox River. They attend local Catholic schools that cluster around Prospect Avenue. Prospect runs parallel to the river through Appleton’s old Third Ward, past historic houses overlooking the Fox. There, amid the old oak trees around a half dozen of these historic houses, live an abundance of black squirrels.

The children and I were disbelieving the first time we saw a black squirrel. They were the same size as the gray squirrels everywhere else in Appleton, with the same large, bushy tails. I had never seen a black squirrel before and hypothesized that this was merely a gray, bushy-tailed squirrel that had gotten down someone’s fireplace and had emerged soot-covered. But we all saw another black squirrel a few days later, and soon realized that a few of the yards contained not one but several specimens, all scurrying about with nuts in their mouths preparing for the winter. We now look out for them when we drive down Prospect Avenue near Richmond Avenue. They are truly beautiful, a rare and exhilerating sight in a picturesque little city. [Candice Bradley, 11/22/98]

Hello. My name is Alba and I have seen a white squirrel in my garden over the last five months.He is normally very active and playful with the other neighbour squirrels, but this morning he is standing still on a big tree and I am worried that it might be ill, but there is not way of telling. Can anyone please tell me what it means when squirrels do not move? Thank you. [2/14/99]

I live in Little Cypress, TX. (north of Orange, TX) and I have a white squirrel. We leave feed out for it and now it will come up to our porch and peer inside our house. Everytime we show someone our white squirrel they are amazed and ask where it came from. I say it came from God. He knows my husband and I love nature. Our neighbors use to call it their squirrel until it started hanging out at our home all the time. [Anna Maria Anderson, 1/18/2003]

I live in Palisades Park, New Jersey and have a white squirrel living on my street. What can I do to protect him? My neighbor kills squirrels with his bee-bee gun. Do you take a squirrel count or get involved in any way once I let you know about the white squirrel? [Lynn Zahn, 9/12/2004]

Here’s an albino squirrel spotted on Linden Avenue in Dayton, Ohio on April 6, 2005. [Chris Mandic, 4/6/2005]

We have had white squirrels in our neighborhood for about the last 5 years along Capstan Ave., Beachwood, NJ . At first it seemed like there was only one of them. Now, we have at least 4 or 5. I’m not sure why we have them here. The people in the neighborhood are used to them now. But every now and then, I’ll see a person bring their car to a full stop when they get a glimpse of one of our white furry friends. [Melanie, 3/11/2006]

Thanks — we don’t plan to add any more squirrel mail. Many towns apparently have white and black squirrels — but only a few proclaim themselves White Squirrel Capitals and hold annual festivals. No more mail on random white or black squirrels please!

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