{"id":140491,"date":"2018-06-13T09:00:57","date_gmt":"2018-06-13T09:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/minnesota-raccoons-daring-skyscraper-scramble-transfixes-internet\/"},"modified":"2018-06-13T09:00:57","modified_gmt":"2018-06-13T09:00:57","slug":"minnesota-raccoons-daring-skyscraper-scramble-transfixes-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/minnesota-raccoons-daring-skyscraper-scramble-transfixes-internet\/","title":{"rendered":"Minnesota raccoon’s daring skyscraper scramble transfixes internet"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"AImage copyright Evan Frost\/ MPR News
Image caption The animal has been scaling the UBS building since Tuesday as crowds watch on <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A daredevil raccoon in St Paul, Minnesota, has had the internet on tenterhooks after scaling 23 floors of a building for nearly a day.<\/p>\n

The critter, dubbed #MPRraccoon after the radio station opposite the high-rise, is trending worldwide on Twitter.<\/p>\n

Crowds have been gathered at the building since he went viral, and local media are streaming his perilous climb. <\/p>\n

Local fire officials and animal services attempted to lure the animal to safety all day.<\/p>\n

Evan Frost, a photojournalist with Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), was still at the scene at about 02:00 (06:00 BST) local time on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

At that time the animal had not moved for several hours, but reports on social media suggest the raccoon successfully ascended to the building's roof just before 03:00am (07:00 BST).<\/p>\n

Image copyright Tim Nelson\/ MPR News
Image caption Watchers were concerned for the animal's welfare, and feared he needed food and water <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

"One of my colleagues spotted the raccoon on kind of ground floor sitting on a ledge on Monday - it looked like a brown lump, almost like a cat sitting there," he told the BBC. <\/p>\n

"We went out there at about 8:30 on Tuesday morning and saw it was a raccoon.<\/p>\n

"Two workers in the building got out a couple of long planks - sort of making a kind of ladder for it."<\/p>\n

But that initial rescue failed - and ended up scaring the animal upwards. <\/p>\n

Skip Twitter post by @efrostee <\/p>\n

\n

He made a run for it! Still stuck though. pic.twitter.com\/8Z7KTK8K1y<\/p>\n

\u2014 Evan Frost (@efrostee) June 12, 2018<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Report <\/p>\n

End of Twitter post by @efrostee<\/p>\n

It spent much of Tuesday going up and down the building's floors. <\/p>\n

"It kept going up incrementally - it would go up four or five floors then would sit on the windowsill and then we'd wait a few hours," Mr Frost said. <\/p>\n

Raccoons are common in the US, but are usually found in alleys or riffling through rubbish bins - leading to the common animal nickname "trash panda". <\/p>\n

Mr Frost and his colleague Tim Nelson have been overwhelmed by the reaction to their posts about the raccoon's ascent. <\/p>\n

"I think it just seems like something a lot of different people can get behind. Everyone wants to see this creature get to safety somehow. It's a very perilous situation," he told the BBC.<\/p>\n

"It's kind of absurd that I took a couple of pictures of an animal that people usually hate and think is disgusting, and all of a sudden it has thousands of retweets and likes."<\/p>\n

Image copyright Evan Frost\/ MPR News
Image caption Crowds gathered throughout Tuesday day and overnight at the scene <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Image copyright Tony Nelson\/MPR News
Image caption One woman, called Maria Lucia, brought binoculars, and said she was worried about the animal <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The photojournalist laughed when asked if he had managed to get any work done away from raccoon-watch. <\/p>\n

"It just took over our days after it took off on social media," he said. <\/p>\n

A Twitter account in the animal's name already has over 2,000 followers - and users online have made fan-art and even toys of the animal. <\/p>\n

Image copyright Tony Nelson\/ MPR News
Image caption Local fire officials tried to coax the animal to safety after saying it was too dangerous to attempt a rescue <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

James Gunn, who directed Hollywood film Guardians of the Galaxy, which featured a hero raccoon, offered to donate $1,000 (\u00a3750) to charity in the name of anyone who saved it. <\/p>\n

A Twitter account in the animal's name already has over 2,000 followers - and users online have made fan-art and even toys of the animal. <\/p>\n

Skip Twitter post by @stribrooks <\/p>\n

\n

I didn\u2019t stay awake all night making a felt #mprraccoon
YOU stayed awake all night making a felt raccoon and a teeny felt tower. pic.twitter.com\/EOKKRkEjMS<\/p>\n

\u2014 Jennifer Brooks (@stribrooks) June 13, 2018<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Report <\/p>\n

End of Twitter post by @stribrooks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image copyright Evan Frost\/ MPR NewsImage caption The animal has been scaling the UBS building since Tuesday as crowds watch on A daredevil raccoon in St Paul, Minnesota, has had<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":140492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}