A raccoon became an unlikely celebrity last year after breaking into a Virginia liquor store, helping itself to 14 bottles of alcohol and passing out next to a toilet.
The hungover raccoon, discovered by a store manager hours later, recovered and was released into the wild about a mile from the store in Ashland, Virginia. The raccoon soon made headlines across the world and inspired a “Saturday Night Live” skit.
“I couldn’t really believe it,” said Jeffrey Parker, Hanover County’s chief of animal protection.
An even bigger surprise to Parker? The Hanover County Animal Protection and Shelter has since raised more than $290,000 capitalizing on the antics of the raccoon, which has become a local mascot.
The animal services department worked with an apparel company to create T-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, mugs and stickers that showed a passed-out raccoon next to a bottle of alcohol. The items came with the slogan: “Trashed Panda.”
Once people across the country started buying the cheeky merchandise, the county added seasonal shirts, including one that says “Hot Trash Summer,” which shows a raccoon passed out on a beach towel next to a drink. There’s also a Halloween-themed shirt that says “Trick or Trashed.”
The money the Hanover County Animal Protection and Shelter raised through the sales in the past year far exceeds the average yearly donations to the shelter, which typically amount to less than $20,000, Parker said.
“We never thought a raccoon would do this for us,” added Parker, 47, who has lived in Hanover County most of his life.
He was faced with a welcome problem: How would the department spend its new money? One way, Parker decided, would be funding body cameras for the department’s eight animal protection officers.
Parker said he had wanted to order body cameras for a few years and began trying to fit them into the county budget last year, before the raccoon broke into the liquor store. When officers needed body cameras, they borrowed them from the county sheriff’s office.
Cameras will allow officers to record evidence for investigations and court proceedings related to animal abuse cases, Parker said, and they will assist in resolving complaints against officers.
Dozens of Hanover County residents supported the body cameras, according to a document presented by county officials last month.
“Officers will have video proof when confronting animal abusers,” one resident wrote to county officials, according to the document. “I work with a cat rescue group and unfortunately there are evil people out there that find pleasure in abusing or neglecting animals. Animals can not speak for themselves.”
County officials unanimously approved the body cameras at a meeting Oct. 28. Officers will begin wearing the cameras around January.
“I don’t know when we’ve owed a debt of gratitude to any animal as much as we do to that raccoon,” board supervisor Faye Prichard said at the meeting.
Raccoons are opportunistic feeders who are drawn to sweet smells, said Sarah Bookbinder, co-founder of a raccoon rehabilitation center in Earlville, New York.
While there is little research on the long-term effects of alcohol on raccoons, Bookbinder said, releasing raccoons near where they were found is one of the most important factors in their survival.
“They already have communities to which they belong,” Bookbinder said, “and areas where they know how to find food and where their dens are.”
Hanover County Animal Protection and Shelter hasn’t received any calls about raccoon break-ins since it released the raccoon into the wild last November, Parker said. At the liquor store, the raccoon had smashed and probably sampled from bottles including rum, moonshine, scotch, Canadian whisky, vodka, peanut butter whiskey and eggnog.
“Hopefully he’s living a good life somewhere,” Parker said, “and is being sober.”
Parker is now deciding how to spend the roughly $140,000 that his department has saved. He said he wants to create an emergency fund to treat injured animals that officers pick up in the field.
Proceeds from merchandise sales are still coming in: Shirts that celebrate the first anniversary of the raccoon’s boozy break-in recently went up for sale.
“One Bad Night,” the shirts say. “A Whole Lot of Good.”
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