By Ian Holmes

Rare albino raccoons capture imaginations on Newcastle Island

Mar 28, 2017 | 4:32 PM

NANAIMO — They may not have the fanfare Spirit Bears have on B.C.’s central coast, but Newcastle Island is home to its own rare blonde mammal.

A limited number of albino raccoons, who have a recessive gene, have lived on Newcastle Island for many years, but have proven to be extremely elusive.

Bill Merilees, a retired Nanaimo-based BC Parks employee, spent many hours on Newcastle Island during his career and was lucky enough to see the unique raccoons several times.

“They are really quite unusual and really quite striking,” Merilees said. “They’ve had a long genetic history and for some reason it’s been expressed much more strongly than almost anywhere else on the B.C. coast that I’m aware of.”

Merilees said the raccoons have lived on Newcastle Island for, at the very least, several decades. He was told about them when he started his career with BC Parks in 1978.

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“As soon as we went over, people were telling us about these raccoons. They’re not easy to see, you can’t just go over and find one, because raccoons are active at dawn and dusk.”

It’s unclear how many of the blonde raccoons currently live on Newcastle. Merilees believes there are upwards of five or six.

Trudy Chatwin, a Protection Island based biologist with the Ministry of Environment, figures there are only one or two, based partly on such limited reports of the raccoons being seen. She’s lived on the island for 20-years, has visited Newcastle hundreds of times and has seen the mammal just once.

“Very rare,” Chatwin told NanaimoNewsNOW about the liklihood of seeing an albino racoon on Newcastle Island. “I live on neighbouring Protection Island and have only seen them once.”

Chatwin said it’s unclear why the raccoons are only confirmed to be living on Newcastle. She noted there are no other documented reports of the unique creatures on Protection Island, Nanaimo, or anywhere else.

She noted raccoons are by no means trapped on Newcastle since they can swim up to two kilometers. Chatwin theorized perhaps a lack of predators on the island have allowed them to survive there. Chatwin believed they are more elusive than regular raccoons because of their inability to blend into the environment.

If you’re hoping to see a Newcastle Island albino racoon, Chatwin said there have been multiple reports of them foraging for food on a beach.

“The best time is when you have a really low tide, boaters might see them passing along that channel between Newcastle and Nanaimo. That’s a really good place to see them there.”

ian.holmes@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @reporterholmes