A Virginia animal shelter has banked more than $290,000 from merchandise featuring a raccoon that broke into a liquor store and passed out drunk in the bathroom.
The windfall for Hanover County Animal Protection and Shelter came after the masked intruder went viral last December for raiding the Ashland ABC Store and sampling 14 bottles of alcohol, including rum and moonshine. Staff found the animal unconscious by the toilet in what officials later joked was a booze-induced haze.
“We never thought a raccoon would do this for us,” Jeffrey Parker, the county’s chief of animal protection, said in an interview. The shelter’s typical yearly donations total less than $20,000, making the raccoon-driven revenue more than 14 times its normal annual haul.
The department moved quickly to capitalize on the creature’s notoriety, slapping its likeness on apparel bearing the slogan “trashed panda.” Sales skyrocketed beyond expectations, and the county expanded into seasonal merchandise including a Halloween-themed “Trick of Trashed” shirt.
The financial cushion has already funded new body cameras for the shelter’s eight animal protection officers. Hanover County officials unanimously approved the equipment during an Oct. 28 meeting, with deployment set for January. The cameras will record evidence for animal abuse investigations and document complaints against officers.
“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.
Parker said the department still has $140,000 in raccoon reserves and is weighing whether to create an emergency fund for treating injured animals.
After the infamous raccoon was transported to the shelter to “sober up before questioning,” officials released it back into the wild. Parker expressed hope that the animal has stayed on the straight and narrow since its brush with fame.
“Hopefully he’s living a good life somewhere,” Parker said, “and is being sober.”
The raccoon’s December bender began when it gained entry to the state-run Ashland ABC Store and worked through more than a dozen bottles of hard liquor. The scene staff discovered—an inebriated wild animal sprawled near the toilet—quickly made the rounds online, spawning memes and eventually the shelter’s lucrative branding opportunity.