While raccoons typically move through the night trying hard to go undetected, one man finally captured a pack moving across power lines in Los Angeles in an epic video.
Michael Sadri, who is known on Instagram as @mikeelchingon, spotted something out of the corner of his eye one evening. As he focused his gaze, shadowy figures started moving. Then it dawned on him: raccoons.
He started filming the animals as they hilariously traveled across the power lines. Sadri paired the video with Mission Impossible music as it looked like they were on a “top secret mission,” and shared the clip to his Instagram account on March 14, which reached 116,000 views as of Monday afternoon.
“I was amused by the raccoons crawling through the wires and how they had different ways of crawling,” he told Newsweek.
The leader of the group put its back paws on the bottom of the two power lines. With the front paws on the top power line, the raccoon sidestepped its way through the obstacle. Following close behind was the second raccoon who used a different approach: a front and back paw on each power line, making a star shape and scooting forward. While this method worked, the raccoon went slower than the first one.
Finally, the third attempted to cross by following the star-shaped method before quickly switching. This daredevil raccoon pulled itself up onto the top power line and used only that to slink across.
In reaction to the video, one Instagram user wrote: “They heard there was a new dumpster with all the fixins across the way.”
A second added: “The trash ninjas are back.”
And a third user posted: “Spy cats hard on a mission impossible.”
@mikeelchingon/Instagram
Raccoons are a common species found in rural and urban California environments. Typically nocturnal, these wildlife animals try to avoid people, however, they are sometimes spotted searching for food during the day.
Raccoons are “highly adaptive,” an article from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife stated. They can become food-conditioned, which leads them to become fearless of humans when provided access to food. Their diet includes almost anything: fruit, nuts, birds, fish, eggs, small mammals, pet food and, of course, trash.
People couldn’t get enough of this hilarious video, which also went viral on X, formerly Twitter. On X, the clip was viewed over 8.5 million times.
“Everyone thought they were cute, hilarious, and they were comparing it to Sly Cooper from the Sly games,” Sadri said.
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