She’s bright (pink) eyed and bushy-tailed now, but one of Trinity Bellwoods Park’s famous albino squirrels wasn’t in such good shape when she was first brought in to Toronto Wildlife Centre.

It’s believed the now12-week-old female squirrel probably had an altercation with a car that left her with “definite signs of head trauma — she was bleeding from the mouth,’’ said Nathalie Karvonen, TWC’s executive director.

Toronto Animal Services delivered the injured baby squirrel to TWC’s Downsview location on Sept. 6, after picking it up from a spot near Trinity Bellwoods Park, where there is a small population of pink-eyed albino squirrels.

“It was a little touch and go” at first as to whether the little squirrel would survive, said Karvonen. It was given oxygen, anti-inflammatories and pain medication. The centre wasn’t sure if the squirrel would have brain damage, but it has fully recovered and seems to be acting “completely normal.”

The squirrel is in a large outdoor cage with another orphaned squirrel — grey, but the same age, or “the equivalent of a teenager now, Karvonen said. The TWC staff try not to interfere with or handle animals more than necessary while they’re recovering because they want to make sure the animal maintains its “wildness” so it can adapt after release.

Normally, a baby squirrel would stay with its mother until about 14 weeks or so. The wildlife workers will keep the albino for about another 2 ½ weeks before taking her back to Trinity Bellwoods Park, near Queen St. W. and Richmond St. W.

Even at a place like the wildlife centre, which is very busy right now with 250 to 300 injured wild animals, birds and reptiles in care — “this is the migratory season for birds’’ Karvonen explained — the albino squirrel with its very fluffy tail stands out.

“We’ve only had a handful over the years,’’ Karvonen said.

Some people live years near the west-end park without spotting the albino squirrels that have lent their name to a nearby restaurant, the White Squirrel Café, and a street, White Squirrel Way, that runs south off Queen St.

But Toronto isn’t the only city with these scampering white rodents.

A number of U.S. communities — Kenton, Tenn.; Olney, Ill.; Marionville, Mo., and Brevard, N.C. — apparently all have thriving white squirrel colonies (mostly albino). They’re often a source of pride and town rivalry, each claiming to be the true “home’’ of white squirrels.

Sound a little nutty? Wait until you see the BBC video on Olney’s white squirrels available on YouTube. A local Olney resident has another YouTube video about his town’s white rodents, complete with a song composition. The Olney police have a big white squirrel outline perched on their shirt badge and on their police cars, right near “serve and protect.’’ The town has “squirrel crossings” marked on street signs.

In Canada, there seems to be only one town known to have a large colony of white squirrels which are not albino — Exeter, Ont., part of the municipality of South Huron, north of London.

On its website there’s a white squirrel photo contest, and the white squirrel has become part of the town’s branding, appearing on the sides of trash receptacles, town flower containers and more.

Laurie Dykstra, deputy clerk for South Huron, said the white squirrels have black eyes and are believed to be a genetic mutation. She said the town has more than 100 white squirrels and “their parents could be black or grey squirrels. Litters often will have a mix.’’

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Exeter has a white mascot character named Willis the White Wonder (named after town founders James and Jane Willis), which appears at various events, and the town used to host an annual white squirrel festival, though that tradition ended in 1999.

But fair or no fair, many tourists still come to see the white squirrels of Exeter. Apparently, they’re also on the move. A few, said Dykstra, have been spotted in nearby towns such as Grand Bend.