Gates Wildlife Control came across a group of five abandoned baby raccoons and planned to reunite them with their mom.
But when they found another orphaned raccoon they decided to sneak him in with the litter of five. They hoped that the litter’s mother would adopt the single raccoon as well.
The babies were all found in someone’s roof. The siblings huddled together, while the other orphaned baby lay apart from them.
It appeared that their mom abandoned them, but that isn’t always the case.
“Mother raccoons leave their kits alone while they forage for food. Sometimes, the mother moves the babies from one location to another. Raccoon babies explore their surroundings when mom is gone. They can easily get dislocated from their nest. Even though the babies are left alone, they are rarely orphaned, unless the mother is killed or relocated. Mother raccoons are very protective and will search high and low to find their babies,” Skedaddle Humane Animal Control writes.
The single raccoon was very close to the same age as the mom’s baby raccoons, though a bit bigger.
Gates Wildlife Control created a temporary shelter where they would place the babies in.
This way they could stay safe until their mom came for them. The five sibling raccoons were placed inside the little shelter.
Then the single orphaned raccoon baby was put in with them.
This didn’t go over so well at first.
There was a little scuffle up in that box. But after a while, they all got along. Eventually, the mother raccoon came along as the rescuers hoped. She pulled them out of the tiny shelter, one by one.
These babies were too young to walk on their own yet.
They just kind of hung out in a little cuddle puddle. But the orphaned raccoon was a little bit bigger than the rest of the babies.
He climbed himself out of the little box and fell off of it.
He wasn’t great at walking yet and was still a little wobbly.
The orphan just followed the mom and got close to her, hoping that she’d let him come along.
He even tried to see if he could feed off of her, but she was a little distracted.
He stumbles around a bit by himself.
Then he walks over toward mom, and she accepts him among her other children.
A video of the uniting of the raccoons with their mom was featured on The Dodo, where it was viewed more than 3.2 million times.
“God bless these precious animals. Hope they’ll find a safe place to grow up and enjoy life. Thank you for saving these innocent animals,” wrote one commenter.
Another commenter wrote:
“What a wonderful thing to see. Thank you for knowing what to do with those sweet babies. I was so glad that the mama took the baby that wasn’t hers. She has a good heart. And thank you for everything you do for animals.”
Watch the sweet reunion in the video below.
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Source: The Dodo, Skedaddle Humane Animal Control
