Who says public radio is too dry? They just gave us one of the most suspenseful stories of the year!
On Tuesday morning, some Minnesota Public Radio reporters noticed a raccoon apparently stranded on a ledge at the Town Square office building in downtown St. Paul. Reporter Tim Nelson tweeted he believed it had been there for two days without food or water.
Animal Control and the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center were contacted and…nobody really seemed to know what to do. Some maintenance guys got up there and tried to use a little platform built from two-by-fours to give the raccoon something to climb on to…and she bolted!
At that point, the raccoon began to climb. She scaled up the side of the UBS building which is a 25-story skyscraper! At that point, the poor fella was out of anyone’s reach, and we could only watch and hope.
This raccoon had no idea it had become a genuine internet phenomenon.
#MPRRaccoon was trending across the U.S., with hundreds of thousands of people fearing the worst, but crossing their fingers that the raccoon would make it to the roof.
@karalynum said: “Idk what a “UBS” is but if they don’t save this mprraccoon, I will never ever forgive them.”, and Layton E. Williams tweeted: “Mood: I am stressed about a lot of unknowns, and I am crying about a raccoon trapped on the ledge of a building in Minneapolis. WILL IT BE OKAY?!”
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Most of America went to bed on Tuesday night genuinely not knowing the answer to that question.
It was like Christmas Eve as a kid, except instead of visit from Santa, you might wake up to a dead raccoon.
Fortunately, despite this being 2018, the story has a happy ending. She made it! She fucking made it! As day broke, the raccoon got a brief rest on a ledge on the 23rd floor of the building, including a visit from the local fire department.
They put some cat food up on the roof to entice her to finish her climb. Apparently raccoons love cat food.
Once on the roof, animal control was able to wrangle her and make sure she was okay. They believe she’s a female, about a year old.
MPR has footage of the thrilling moment when she finally made it onto the roof, and honestly, I’m going to play that clip for my MondayMotivation every week for the rest of my life.
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Here is the #mprraccoon being picked up by technicians from Wildlife Management Services just now. Taken away by truck to an "undisclosed location." pic.twitter.com/x0iMZhW7zd
— Tim Nelson (@timnelson_mpr) June 13, 2018
Wildlife Management Services confirmed that the raccoon has eaten, is healthy, and was safely released back into the wild.
The mayor of St. Paul, Minnesota, Melvin Carter told MPR: “Someone texted me this morning: ‘We needed this win,'”
Thank you, Melvin. We all needed this win.
What do you guys think? Will there be a news story with a better ending in 2018? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter at @WhatsTrending.
