Raccoon In Saint Paul, Minnesota, Stuck On Skyscraper, Prompting Twitter Hashtag, Prayers

Update: 4:21 a.m. EDT — Efforts to bring the raccoon that had climbed to the 23rd floor of the UBS Tower in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to safety finally paid off as the creature scaled the length of the building to the roof where live traps had been set up with cat food by the city’s animal control officials to lure it in. The raccoon was initially steadily descending down the building but paused to rest for a while in the window ledge of the 17th floor. After a few minutes, it started making its way back up.

A video capturing the moment of the raccoon’s tremendous feat was posted by Minnesota Public Radio’s Tim Nelson.

It was not immediately known if the animal found its way into one of the traps laid for it.

Original story:

Out of everything that could trend on Twitter, a raccoon scaling a high rise office building in downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota, united the people of the social media platform Tuesday.

According to MPR News, which branded the hashtag #mprraccoon, the animal initially became stranded on a downtown office building ledge on 7th Street, in the middle of its mission to raid a pigeon's nest over the skyway. It then proceeded to escape to the roof of the two-story building and from there climbed another 20 stories up the side of the nearby UBS tower.

It has been two days since the raccoon had any food or water.

People inside the different floors of the UBS tower, as well as onlookers outside the building, took pictures and videos of the raccoon and posted them on social media.

As an increasing number of people joined in praying for the raccoon’s safe return to the ground, with hilarious memes and posts, #mprraccoon quickly became one of the top trends on Twitter for the day.

Even celebrities like James Gunn, the director of “Guardians Of The Galaxy” chimed in, pledging to “donate a thousand bucks to the non political charity of choice to anyone who saves this raccoon.”

Soon the raccoon had at least one parody Twitter account of its own, which tweeted, “I made a mistake.”

People who gathered around the skyscraper to watch the raccoon’s journey, got in touch with Minnesota's state wildlife rehab center and St. Paul's animal control to get them to help retrieve the creature. However, there were a number of hurdles in ensuring the creature’s safety.

St. Paul’s Fire Chief Alan Gabrielle went up to the floor where the little creature was taking a break from climbing the high rise and after assessing the situation, said it would be too risky to put someone on the side of the building to retrieve the raccoon.

Animal control experts said they had put live traps on the roof, filled with “aromatic” cat food to lure the raccoon up there. But their efforts did not seem to do much as the raccoon began to make its way down the side of the tower, instead of going up.

According to the latest update, the raccoon had climbed down from the 23rd floor to the 17th floor and was resting on one of the window ledges.

Bryan Lueth with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources said climbing was one of raccoons’ natural survival skills, and scaling a high rise building was not unheard of before.

"If I had to come up with a scenario, I would say it was maybe holed up in an alley and it got rousted out of there by something and then ran out onto the sidewalk, and then there's all these people around. It's like 'Ah!' The natural instinct is to climb," Lueth said.

But if someone can pull such a stunt, it has to be a raccoon. "They're an animal that has adapted to living in close proximity to people — taking advantage of food sources, denning locations, relative lack of predators — so they're usually pretty successful," Lueth said.