OK Craig.

In our last video, you got to go on an adventure to the middle of the desert, to Biosphere 2, like the coolest, largest experiment ever conducted by humans.

What do I get to do?

Well, I'm a little jealous because you get to do something much better, much, much better.

I'm sending you to Olney, Illinois.

Olney, Illinois?

What's with Olney, Illinois.

It's the home of a town completely run by albino squirrels.

I'm in.

Let's go.

All right, now I know this is going to take some convincing.

Oh, you're going?

OK.

Here we are in Olney, Illinois, home of the white squirrels.

We're going to find out what that's all about.

On the surface, Olney seems like any other small town in rural America, but once you get there and walk around a bit, you start to notice something that definitely sets it apart, squirrels.

Lots of squirrels.

Albino gray squirrels, to be exact.

And for some reason, Olney, Illinois has an unusually large population.

Yes, and I'm glad you used the term albino.

This is Ray Vaughn, local attorney and mayor of Olney Illinois.

We're known as the home of the white squirrels, but there are two different types of white squirrels.

There's just white squirrels, and then there's albino white squirrels.

And there is a huge difference.

We actually have albino white squirrels.

Albinism is a recessive genetic trait that results in the absence of pigmentation or melanin, resulting in white skin, fur, and pink eyes.

Why is the town known for these albino squirrels?

For, well, as long as I've been here, of course, we've been known as the home of the white squirrels.

But for years before that, it was just kind of an anomaly.

So we've always had them.

It's always been a unique thing.

Sightseers would comment, and eventually the town adopted it as their official motto.

And it's become one and the same, Olney and white squirrels.

We are in, this is the WildWoods Gallery.

DALLAS DEAN: Wildwoods Gallery.

Yup, and this is the white squirrel section?

DALLAS DEAN: Yes.

MATT: What do we have here?

DALLAS DEAN: We have shirts.

We have sweatshirts.

We have anything that you want that a white squirrel can be on.

We have it.

Socks, we have socks.

This is a big deal in the area because the park is the White Squirrel Park, and we have everything in Olney is wrapped around the white squirrel.

People come in from all around.

MATT: To find out exactly where these are albino squirrels came from and how they got to be such a big deal, we decided to talk with Belinda Hinton, resident squirrel expert and wildlife rehabilitator.

BELINDA HINTON: I rehabilitate usually white squirrels.

I try to stick with the white squirrels.

I do end up with some gray squirrels, and sometimes I'll have some flying squirrels.

Why do you stick to the white squirrels?

We're known for the white squirrels, home of the white squirrels in Olney, Illinois.

So it's important for us to try to protect them as much as we can.

MATT: Unfortunately, albino squirrels are at a disadvantage when it comes to surviving in the wild.

Their lack of pigmentation makes them especially visible to predators and usually results in poor eyesight as well.

Which made me wonder, how did an animal with a distinct survival disadvantage come to thrive in the town of Olney?

That's a good question.

We don't really know that, and maybe it's because we've cared for them for so long.

They have been here since 1902.

There's actually a couple different stories that kind of intermingle, so we don't know which story's correct, but they're very similar.

There was a hunter out in the county, and he happened to shoot a squirrel.

And it was a mama squirrel, and he realized that there were babies.

And when he found the babies, there were two white squirrels.

So he took them to town, and he put them on display at a saloon downtown.

And they were there for quite a while, and of course, the saloon keeper was pretty excited to have them because it brought business into the saloon and made him a little extra money.

So the townspeople got a little upset because they were keeping them in captivity so long, so they ordered them to be released.

So they released them here in town, and supposedly, the population grew from there.

MATT: Over the years, the albino squirrels became an integral part of Olney's identity, and protecting the squirrel population became a top priority.

The city passed a law officially granting squirrels the right of way on all public streets, sidewalks, and thoroughfares.

There's also a law prohibiting cats and dogs from running at large, and over the years, there have been numerous attempts to curb and control the cat population.

But those efforts meet with quite a bit of resistance from the cat lovers.

MATT: In addition, any attempt to kill, ensnare, or even harass a squirrel can result in a hefty fine.

Yeah, there is a fine, and I think it's between $65 and $750, something like that.

MATT: $750?

Yeah, $750.

CRAIG: Just for harassment?

Yeah, just for harassment.

So do not harass my squirrels.

MATT: Yeah, that's a steep fine.

Are they babies or uh-- BELINDA HINTON: Yeah, they're babies.

MATT: OK, OK. BELINDA HINTON: These are two different families.

The gray one I have came with a sister, but I have pictures of her.

She doesn't look good.

I think she was attacked by a cat.

MATT: Oh, OK. BELINDA HINTON: She had puncture wounds all over her, gobs of blood.

And this little guy, the gray one I have, had some blood.

I think he had some nose damage.

He's real wheezy when he talks.

[laughs] When he breathes.

So it's getting better, so I don't think it's anything life-threatening.

MATT: How many squirrels a year do you get?

BELINDA HINTON: It really varies.

Sometimes I'll have seven at a time, and that's a handful.

It's feeding time, and being that they're so small, when they live in a tree or a nest, they're in a dark, small place.

So they like to cuddle up and be hidden most of the time, and being the babies that they are, they sleep.

Either they're eating or they're sleeping.

How old are they?

This one is probably about, I'm going to say, seven weeks old, six and a half to seven weeks old.

The other one that I have in here is probably eight.

I keep them inside at this point in their life because they're not eating solid food yet.

So once I wean them off of milk and make sure that they're drinking water from a bowl and eating solid foods, then I'll take them outside into a larger cage that they can kind of get used to the outdoors, the sounds, the wind, the weather, things like that.

And once they're used to that and doing good with all their food, I just open the door and let them go.

They come and go as they please for usually quite a few months.

So we're just trying to put some weight on for the winter and get used to the outdoors real soon.

Because they're an albino squirrel, their genes are recessive, so they need a little help.

And the more we can save, I think the longer we'll be able to keep that white squirrel colony in here in Olney.

MATT: Without help, the albino squirrels of Olney actually have a very good chance of disappearing completely.

A big part of the problem is their recessive gene.

If two albino squirrels mate, they'll most likely produce a baby albino squirrel.

But if an albino squirrel and a gray squirrel mate, the gray squirrel would have to have the recessive gene and pass it along for any albino offspring to be produced.

There's a lot more gray squirrels around, so it's more likely that an albino squirrel would mate with a gray squirrel.

There is a small possibility that two gray squirrels could mate and produce an albino offspring, but both parents would have to have the recessive gene and pass it on.

The odds of that happening are one in 1,200.

This, in addition to the fact that albino squirrels have such a hard time surviving in the wild, makes it likely that the population will disappear in the near future.

Even with help from people like Belinda, the odds are not in the albino squirrels' favor.

RAY VAUGHN: And every year, we conduct a squirrel count to count and maintain numbers on how we're doing, squirrel wise.

And how are you doing?

The count has been going on for about 40 years now.

What we do is we go out in the fall when the weather's turning, and we count gray squirrels, white squirrels.

And there's been a general decline in the white squirrel population over the last four years.

CRAIG: Why do you do this?

What about the white squirrels means something like to you, I guess?

Yeah.

It's our identity.

It doesn't matter how far away from here you go.

I'm from Olney, and they go, Oh, yeah.

The home of the white squirrels.

It's like that's what they identify with you, and so many people just drop by.

They'll be coming in from Chicago or coming up from Florida.

We're just a small town in Southern Illinois, and there's 100 more just like us.

But we have tremendous pride in this community about this albino squirrel, and I think people kind of rally around that.

Yeah, we would lose a lot of what we are if we lost those squirrels.

It's become that much a part of the community.

["WHITE SQUIRRELS OF OLNEY" PLAYING] MATT: You know, I hate to say this because I don't like to end our videos on a depressing note, but the main thing that I've come away from this is the fact that these squirrels are probably going to go away, no matter what these people do, no matter how much they care for them, just because of the nature of the genetics and how they breed.

And I don't know.

It seems really sad.

And it's not what I expected at all.

We think that we are powerful enough to like take care of an animal.

We can make any animal last as long as we want, but that's not always the case.

A lot of the time that control we think we have is an illusion, or maybe not an illusion, but it's maybe wishful thinking.

But I don't think it's harmful to think that way because wishful thinking is like a form of hope.

And I think Belinda showed that, and people in this town show that.

And I think that's something that the albino squirrel sort of embodies, or at least something we put upon it is this idea, this thing that's not supposed to exist, not supposed to thrive, but it is here.

It is thriving here, for now anyway, and they've embraced it.

And I think that's cool.

["WHITE SQUIRRELS OF OLNEY" PLAYING] Thanks for watching.

If you like the show and you want the show to continue, check out our Patreon page and become a supporter.

We really appreciate all the support we can get, and it helps us keep doing this.

Last week we asked you about the biosphere, and here's what you had to say.

Kevin [inaudible] asked why the biosphere was losing oxygen.

Well, there were a couple theories at first.

The managers of the biosphere thought that the microbes in the soil might be sucking out the oxygen.

They also thought the respiration rate of the oxygen was faster than photosynthesis could replace it.

Eventually, researchers at Columbia University discovered that the CO2 was reacting with the concrete in the facility in a way that sequestered oxygen.

In the second mission, they actually sealed the concrete, and that fixed the problem.

Hello, Craig here, wandering the streets of Edinburgh, Scotland on my honeymoon, trying to find my wife.

[inaudible] 005 and Sean Marshall asked if there were animals in Biosphere 2.

The original mission had a bunch of animals.

They had goats, chickens, a few pigs, and they originally raised talapia fish.

The ocean was originally filled with coral and had some other fish and invertebrate species as well.

I haven't found my wife yet, but I have found this sandwich.

Unfortunately, they overstocked the fish, and most of them ended up dying.

Most of the vertebrate species and pollinating insects died, too.

What ended up doing well, though, were cockroaches and a species of ant that were accidentally introduced to the system.

And the ants basically took over, so what's left today are mostly ants, some other kinds of insects, snails, and some fish.

Hey, and there's my wife.

She's eating a sandwich, too.

Hey.

Found her.

Tinkey Longbottom pointed out that mental health upkeep and team building exercises were sorely missing from the first experiments at Biosphere.

This is a good point, and it was one of the main criticisms of the original experiment.

It's been well documented that people in confined spaces, like scientists at conductive research facilities, often break down and turn against each other, which is exactly what happened at Biosphere 2.

Combine that with the massive oxygen loss and the fact that they're always hungry, and you've got a pretty ugly situation on your hands.

The whole story is really fascinating and kind of crazy, and there's a couple books written by people who were in the biosphere that you can check out.

I believe there was a whole documentary produced about this experiment called Bio-dome.

There you go.

I made a Bio-dome joke.

Are you happy, Dushku and Chris Labban?

Thanks for all the great comments.

We'll see you next week when we talk to a guy who's trying to turn chickens into dinosaurs.

Bye.

Bye.

This is-- I'm eating chicken right now.

I hope it's not a dinosaur.