Baby raccoons rescued in Lancaster County are looking for a new home

LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. (WHTM)– The two raccoons who ended up in Lancaster County, thousands of miles away from their habitat, are now looking for a new home.

Raven Ridge Wildlife Center shared the update for the raccoons, which are named John and Denver, on Facebook on Tuesday, saying that they are looking for a sanctuary that they can put them in.

In June, Mount Joy Borough Police officers found the baby raccoons along with their mother, abandoned, in the back of a tractor-trailer that made its way to Pennsylvania from Denver, Colorado. The mother was released but the babies were struggling to adapt to their new surroundings so they were turned over to Raven Ridge Wildlife Center.

The plan was to send the raccoons back to their home once they were healthy and ready, but that isn’t happening. Colorado Parks & Wildlife said after being contacted that if raccoons are brought for rehabilitation, then they must be released back to the same area where they were found.

“Their regulations state that raccoons that are brought in for rehabilitation, need to be released back to the same location within two miles of where it was found,” the wildlife center wrote in a Facebook post. “We kept them quarantined and away from other raccoons and vaccinated, in hopes of getting the okay to move forward to bring them home.”

The Pennsylvania Game Commission was notified about the raccoons because it is illegal to bring wildlife into the state for rehabilitation as well.

So, John and Denver are currently looking for a new home in Pennsylvania.