CHICAGO — An adorable new video shows a mother raccoon rescuing her cub from above the swollen Chicago River.
The video, shared Wednesday on Facebook, shows the baby raccoon perched on a ledge above the river.
The mother swoops down from above, using her hind legs to hold onto an upper ledge while she reaches for the cub. She grabs him with her mouth and then swings back up, pulling the baby to safety.
The video was shared by Urban Rivers, the organization behind the Wild Mile. The Wild Mile is a floating eco-park on the Chicago River east of Goose Island between Chicago and North avenues.
Phil Nicodemus, the group’s head of biology, said he spotted the raccoons while leading a kayak tour on the river at 10:15 a.m. Wednesday. He heard “crazy chattering sounds” and saw three baby raccoons on the ledge with their mom in the process of saving the first, he said.
The mom rescued the first and second raccoons, and Nicodemus was able to record the video of her rescuing the final baby. Afterward, they ambled away into bushes.
“It was awesome,” Nicodemus said. “It’s cool to see. I think everyone is really impressed with how acrobatic and agile those raccoons are. There’s a reason that they’re everywhere, and it’s because they have this crazy ability to survive in all these beaten-down, urban conditions.”
Urban Rivers promotes wildlife along the Wild Mile, Nicodemus said. Besides the raccoons, they’ve seen muskrats, beavers, turtles and water fowl like Canada geese return to the area.
“I think it’s just really interesting to see how a lot of these wildlife end up adapting to our harsh urban environment,” he said.
Watch the video: