鶹’s unofficial mascot is getting love from Northeast Ohioans far and wide.
Black squirrels are believed to have first come to Ohio via the Kent Campus, although there are a few different stories explaining how this came to be.
recently asked 3,100 of its readers if they’ve spotted any black squirrels in their neighborhoods around the city. The prompt netted 630 responses from readers in areas including Ashtabula, Avon Lake, Rocky River, Cleveland Heights and elsewhere, sharing local black squirrel spottings, memories of seeing them on campus and urban legends on the black squirrels’ origins.
“The story that black squirrels began their American habitation in Kent is consistent with what campus lore maintains,” one reader, a retired Kent State faculty member, . “Reportedly, they were brought to the U.S. from Canada by a biology professor and are enthusiastically celebrated on campus as a mascot.”
Readers are tracking their progress as they have migrated northward. “No black squirrels in north Mentor but I’ve seen them in Chardon. They’re coming up Route 44,” one respondent shared.