Trending: Heartbroken raccoon vigorously tries to wake dead friend

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A raccoon laid motionless in the middle of a busy Toronto street when its friend, or possible parent, scurried over to it on Saturday night.

People standing on the street yelled at the raccoon to stop, but its love prevailed.

The raccoon dodged the backed-up traffic and to approach its friend. You can even hear it squeal out, crying for the other raccoon to wake up.

“You hear the sound that it’s making, that’s what babies make with their mom,” said Suzanne MacDonald, animal behaviourist and psychology professor at York University.

MacDonald said raccoons typically avoid traffic and that the sound the raccoon is making is what baby raccoons do to get their mothers’ attention.

“I’m assuming that the smaller one was the baby and the one that was hit was the mom,” she said.

And then it started to vigorously shake its mom, desperately trying to get her to ‘get up’ as described by the YouTube user A Ka.

You can even see the raccoon turn its parent over to see if it is OK or maybe even perform live-saving measures.

“It just couldn’t leave its friend,” A Ka said.

Finally the people on the street chased the raccoon away while its mom laid on her back, all alone.

(To view video on mobile, click here)

MacDonald said that raccoons are not known to be cannibals so she doesn’t think the one racoon is eating the other.

“I think the raccoon has already become the unofficial animal of Toronto,” said MacDonald. “We seem to have more raccoon stories than anyone else.”

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