Mystery creature in Richmond Hill may have been albino raccoon

A York University professor says it’s an albino raccoon in the photos taken by a Richmond Hill woman.
It appeared like a vision — sniffing around a tree, wriggling itself under a plant, strolling along the metal fence with a swagger that did not subside despite a dog’s barks metres away.
The at-first unidentifiable white animal was in Paula Gianasi’s Richmond Hill backyard late last month. It had the shape of a small raccoon, but certainly not the colour, so Gianasi followed it and took pictures from afar with the hope of later finding out what it was.
“The next day I thought, I have to find out what it is, because I’ve lived here 37 years, I’ve seen every animal under the sun, I’ve seen a lot of wild animals, but I have never seen . . . ” Gianasi said, trailing off.
She called animal control services, the Town of Richmond and finally her local newspaper, which published an article and photos she’d taken of the white animal, speculating it could be a possum.
But as soon as York University professor Suzanne MacDonald, who specializes in urban wildlife behaviour, saw the photos, she says she knew it was an albino raccoon.
“I knew right away — that’s not a colour variant found in raccoons so it had to be albino,” she told the Star in an email Tuesday, adding albinism occurs in one in every 10,000 animal births.
“They are more common than you might think,” she said, but the babies don’t usually survive very long due to health problems, like blindness, “so we don’t see very many of them.”
When Gianasi heard what it might be, the encounter felt even more unusual. In church Tuesday, she joked it was her spirit animal. She’s called it “Neige,” which is French for snow.
“It is special — I feel very special that I saw this beautiful creation that is rare,” Gianasi said.
She’d had an inkling it may not be a possum because its tail was thicker. And an email with the photos she sent to neighbours and relatives jokingly surmised the animal was an albino raccoon.
The slow stroll started to make sense, given its possible blindness and even deafness.
“I felt so sad,” Gianasi said, speaking of the poor health that could be plaguing it. “I’m looking out every morning . . . I’m hoping that, you know, it’s OK.”
Nathalie Karvonen, director of the Toronto Wildlife Centre, said that, from Gianasi’s account of the animal’s behaviour, there was “clearly something wrong with it.”
She pointed to a spate this year of raccoons suffering distemper, a neurological disease causing them to be drowsy and unusually unafraid of humans or other animals, and which eventually kills them, but said it could be a host of problems.
Karvonen, too, guessed the animal was an albino raccoon at first glance of the pictures Gianasi took. “The raccoon has a very characteristic body shape . . . and (it’s) the only representative of the procyonidae family in North America,” she explained.
Gianasi’s sighting wasn’t the only one in the area, noted Gail Lenters, founder of the Shades of Hope animal refuge in Pefferlaw.
In May, a wildlife removal company she knows well found a baby albino raccoon in a Richmond Hill attic, Lenters said, adding her refuge also took one in this year, but it died hours later.
“I suppose it’s possible it could be the same one,” she said of the one in the attic and the one believed to have been seen on Gianasi’s lawn.
Lenters said the one in Gianasi’s photo — despite the resolution being unclear — appeared to be a raccoon. She saw it online.
“It crossed my desk, actually, and I saw it. It gave me a smile,” Lenters said.