Did Lowellville woman find albino raccoon?

Staff report

LOWELLVILLE

At first, Phyllis Nolfi thought she saw a cat in a ditch by Bedford Road on her way home Thursday evening.

At second glance, she thought it looked more like a polar bear cub.

Nolfi then turned her car around and went back up the road and took a picture with her smartphone.

Upon further examination, she believes it might be an albino raccoon.

“I’ve lived in the country my whole life, and I’ve never seen one like that,” she said.

Marne Titchenell, a wildlife program specialist of the Ohio State University Extension School of Environment and Natural Resources, said an albino animal most likely will have white fur and pink-red eyes.

If the animal doesn’t have pink-red eyes, then it is not an albino.

The photograph Nolfi took doesn’t show the exact eye color, however.

“I can’t tell you how rare albinism is in raccoons, only that it is rare,” Titchenell said in an email. “Again, it occurs from a disruption to the melanin so the geographical location shouldn’t impact albinism. Meaning it is no more rare to find an albino raccoon in Lowellville than it would be in Canfield.”