JERSEY SHORE, Pa. (AP) — A couple in central Pennsylvania found a very unusual critter in their backyard — a purple squirrel.

Percy Emert said he and his wife, Connie, have cage-like traps in their yard to keep squirrels away from the bird feeders. Percy Emery then releases the squirrels into the woods away from his home but joked that sometimes they make it back to his house before he does.

“I came home (one day recently) and my wife said, ‘You’re not going to believe it but I saw a purple squirrel in the yard,’” he said Thursday. “So I put out a trap with a couple of peanuts inside.”

Before too long, the squirrel came back and found itself in the trap Sunday.

“I thought, ‘Nobody’s going to believe me,” he said. “Even the inside of its ears were purple. It wasn’t like it fell into something. It didn’t look like that at all.”

The animal quickly became an online sensation and even has its own Facebook page.

After the couple released the squirrel Tuesday, Percy Emert said a state game warden came by and took samples of purple fur that the squirrel left behind inside the cage, as well as six to eight pieces of fur that Percy Emert took from the squirrel’s tail before releasing it.

“It looked like it was healthy, the only thing was that its teeth were brown,” he said.

Asked about the possibility of having this particular squirrel making its way back to his house, Emert said he thought it was unlikely.

“It’s far enough away,” he said. “Maybe we’ll hear about someone in town seeing it.”

Henry Kacprzyk, a curator at the Pittsburgh Zoo, said Thursday he thought it looked like a gray squirrel tinged in purple, after looking at a picture of the critter on an iPhone.

He knows of albino squirrels. Black squirrels. Gray squirrels. Reddish squirrels.

“But the purple coloration, from the purple I saw … it looked to me like this animal had come in contact with something with its fur and dyed its fur,” Kacprzyk said. The squirrel could have come in contact with a pokeberry patch, but pokeberries aren’t in season.

“I’ve got to think one of the suggestions might be it fell in a Porta John that had blue coloration,” he said with a chuckle. “I have no idea why … but I don’t think it was born that way.”

When asked about the suggestions by some people in online forums of the potential impact of fracking fluid, Kacprzyk said the composition of such fluids in Pennsylvania wasn’t known. “My guess there is if you don’t know something, is that there’s no scientific proof to that. … I would find it amazing that it had that kind of effect,” he said.

In general, purple is an unusual color for mammals, let alone squirrels.

“There are definitely birds that have coloration like this … but not mammals,” he said. “Mammals don’t normally uptake color, ingest something it goes through and (then) it comes out through their fur.”

Accuweather.com first reported the discovery.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Feeding an Alaska moose is normally taboo, but state wildlife officials will make an exception this year because of extraordinary circumstances — deep snow.

The Department of Fish and Game announced Monday that a permit has been issued to the Alaska Moose Federation allowing the advocacy group to take measures in southcentral Alaska that will divert moose from roads, driveways and railroad lines, which moose seek out in heavy snow years. The measures include feeding stations and, perhaps as important, trails that moose can use to move to natural feeding areas.

Tony Kavalok, assistant director of the Wildlife Conservation Division, said public safety drove the decision.

“We hope the diversionary feeding stations will lure moose away from roads and will reduce moose-vehicle collisions and other dangerous encounters,” he said in the announcement.

Kavalok estimates that more than 600 moose have been killed by cars, trucks and trains so far this winter in the Anchorage, the Kenai Peninsula and the Matanuska-Susitna boroughs, where the tactics will be applied. He didn’t have an exact count, but the Mat-Su Borough a few weeks ago had listed the moose kill at 315.

“All I can tell you is that we’re way above normal,” he said by phone.

Snow has accumulated to more than 4 feet deep in some places, making snow shoes a necessity for humans leaving a trail. It’s not just the quantity of the snow that’s the problem, Kavalok said. The quality also can be an issue if moose are breaking through crust.

“It makes it very difficult to move around,” he said.

Moose punching through the snow burn more calories.

“They end up spending a lot more energy, which they need to overwinter,” he said. Their long legs serve them well until the snow gets higher than 34 to 40 inches, he said.

Moose gravitate to plowed areas to conserve energy, putting them and drivers in harm’s way.

Alaska Moose Federation Director Gary Olson said his group has state grants to expand moose-kill salvage programs and to relocate moose from high-contact areas but neither will be used for the diversion effort. The group will instead rely on donations and this week received the first installment of a $50,000 gift from Allstate Insurance Co.

“That’s a good start,” Olson said. “We’re going to be requesting assistance from state agencies, from the railroad, and other partners,” he said.

An elementary school called to say it wanted to raise money for haylage. One 4-foot-wide bale from a local farmer will cost the federation $50.

“Now that we have this permit, we can actually start picking up partners as fast as we can to offset this damage that’s well under way,” Olson said.

The moose federation will identify areas with high moose concentrations and try to lure moose to natural feeding areas by setting trails away from roads, Kavalok said. Part of the attraction will be bales of silage or “haylage,” a crop that carries some nutritional value for moose. The federation may also seek permits to cut down trees and other natural vegetation that will divert moose from roads.

According to the permit, trails should be oriented to be parallel to nearby roads or railways. The moose federation will need permission from landowners before creating trails or diversionary feed. Trails will have to be at least a quarter-mile from public roads or railroads.

The alternate travel routes will not be set up immediately, Kavalok said.

“It will be a process,” he said. “It might take a couple or three weeks.”

It will remain a misdemeanor for people to feed moose if they don’t have a permit. Kavalok said feeding moose is dangerous people, as well as their neighbors.

Moose can turn aggressive and demanding to protect a food supply. They can also eat the wrong things. What people might believe is moose food may not be digestible for the ungulates, leading to serious health problems, he said.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — West Virginia has joined a string of states looking to regulate or ban exotic animals kept as pets following the release of dozens of wild animals in an Ohio town last year.

The Senate introduced a bill this week that would require current owners of such animals to obtain a permit and inspection from the Division of Natural Resources and generally bans breeding and possession of non-native, wild animals. A related bill in the House of Delegates would ban future purchases and prohibit breeding but does not provide a permitting process.

Animals under the ban could include snow leopards, cobras and crocodiles.

Both bills also detail records that the owners must keep or present to health or animal control officials and allow the animals to be confiscated.

The Senate bill currently lacks a specific list of animals and lawmakers are working to change the wording before the Natural Resources Committee could consider the issue as early as next week, said Sen. William Laird, the committee’s chair.

The Fayette County Democrat said the bills were prompted by the release of dozens of animals by a private owner in Zanesville, Ohio, last October. Police were forced to kill 48 of the animals and several others were taken to zoos for care and treatment.

“In West Virginia we don’t currently have what are considered to be adequate laws relating to exotic animals,” Laid said. “This legislation is intended to bring some elements of oversight to that process for persons would choose to have animals that are not indigenous to this region.”

Existing state law provides pet permits for some native animals and commercial permits for captive deer. State law also prohibits keeping some animals like raccoons as pets because of the risk of rabies, said Paul Johansen, assistant chief in charge of game management with the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources.

But officials have no idea how many people own exotic animals because state law doesn’t require owners to report them, Johansen said.

“A lot of this stuff takes place underneath the radar screen,” he said. “We don’t know where they are. We don’t know how many there are. We don’t how they are being housed or if they’re a threat to local communities.”

The last time DNR officers encountered an exotic animal, a tiger had escaped its cage and was spotted several miles away from Snowshoe Mountain Resort in 2008, Johansen said.

The Humane Society of the United States supports the House version of the bill. The organization wants to prohibit breeding and prevent future wild animal purchases in the state in order to reduce the risk of spreading diseases to domestic animals and humans, said Summer Wyatt, the state director in West Virginia.

Exotic animals that escape or set free pose a risk to native wildlife. Constricting snakes are a particular problem in West Virginia, Wyatt said.

Owners purchase them when they are small and manageable. But when they grow to full size, owners often can’t care for them or grow tired of them and let them loose. The constrictors, which can kill a full-size deer, have no local predators and often breed, she said.

“It is really scary how these animals can affect our world when they’re in the wrong places,” Wyatt said.

The West Virginia Legislature considered a similar bill several years ago but lawmakers showed little interest and the measure stalled. But the release and destruction of the animals in Ohio showed lawmakers just how dangerous owning wild creatures can be, she said.

The Legislature giveth, and the Legislature taketh away. At the very same time they’re proposing to bring exotic animals under the Division of Natural Resources’ jurisdiction, they’re considering a bill that would take captive deer facilities out of the DNR’s control and place it under the Department of Agriculture.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Health officials are warning people who were in downtown Providence last week that they may have been exposed to rabies when a man was showing off a bat he had in a box.

Officials say the man was displaying the animal in Kennedy Plaza on the morning of Jan. 23. A health care provider alerted health officials after treating one onlooker for a bat bite and another for suspected rabies exposure.

Bat rabies is highly contagious. Health officials say they’re not sure if the bat had rabies, but they’re advising people who were at the plaza that morning to have themselves checked out and to call the Department of Health.

Officials say the unidentified man was in his 50s and was about 6 feet tall with a beard and glasses.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A former Ohio Department of Natural Resources wildlife officer plans to change his plea on federal charges accusing him of helping a South Carolina hunter illegally obtain an Ohio deer license at a discount that saved him about $105.

A court filing Tuesday said Allan Wright, of Russellville, planned to change his plea next month to charges of trafficking in and making false records for illegally harvested white-tailed deer.

A message was left with his attorney. A change of plea filing typically means a defendant is pleading guilty.

Investigators have said Wright illegally let a South Carolina wildlife official use his home address in 2006 to receive a $19 license for an Ohio resident instead of paying the $125 out-of-state fee.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources dismissed Wright in October.