Virginia Shelter Raises $290K Off Viral Drunk Raccoon Merchandise

A raccoon found passed out on the floor of a Virginia liquor store last December, surrounded by the wreckage of 14 bottles it had apparently sampled, has turned into one of the most unlikely budget lines in Hanover County government. The animal, discovered sleeping it off near a toilet at the Ashland ABC Store, became a viral sensation online — and the county's animal shelter has since turned that notoriety into more than $290,000 in merchandise sales, according to a report by the New York Post, which cited reporting by The Washington Post.

What happened at the Ashland liquor store?

The raccoon's rampage unfolded last December inside the ABC Store in Ashland, a town in Hanover County, Virginia. By the time anyone found the animal, it had gotten into 14 bottles of alcohol and ended up asleep near a toilet, according to the Post report. Images and video of the intoxicated animal spread quickly online, earning it an unofficial nickname that has since become a merchandising brand: "trashed panda."

How much has the "Trashed Panda" merchandise raised?

The Hanover County Animal Protection and Shelter leaned into the raccoon's newfound fame, selling shirts and other items stamped with its likeness and the "trashed panda" slogan. Those sales, along with seasonal spinoffs such as a Halloween-themed "Trick of Trashed" shirt, have brought in more than $290,000, the shelter told the Post. That figure dwarfs what the shelter typically collects in donations during an entire year — normally less than $20,000 — meaning the raccoon-driven windfall topped the shelter's usual annual haul by more than 14 times over.

What will Hanover County do with the money?

The cash is being redirected into equipment the department says it has needed: body cameras for its animal protection officers. Hanover County supervisors voted unanimously on Oct. 28 to approve the purchase, which will outfit all eight of the department's animal protection officers, according to the Post. Officers are expected to begin wearing the cameras in January. The department says the footage will be used to document evidence in animal abuse investigations and in complaints filed against officers themselves, giving both the public and the department a record of enforcement encounters that until now went unrecorded.

What does the shelter say about the windfall?

Jeffrey Parker, Hanover County's chief of animal protection, said the scale of the fundraising surprised his own department. "We never thought a raccoon would do this for us," Parker said, according to the Post. The remark captures a budget story that would otherwise be a routine municipal purchasing decision — new recording equipment for a small enforcement unit — if not for the fact that the money came almost entirely from a single animal's viral embarrassment rather than taxpayer appropriations or a typical donor campaign.

Why did the merchandise sell so well?

The Post's reporting does not detail exact sales figures for individual items or a breakdown of how many units moved, but it does make clear the shelter expanded beyond a single shirt design once the initial "trashed panda" apparel took off, adding seasonal variants to keep interest going months after the original incident faded from headlines. That pattern — a department with a normally modest fundraising footprint sustaining sales momentum for nearly a year — suggests the raccoon's appeal outlasted the usual lifespan of an internet animal clip, giving Hanover County time to convert attention into a durable revenue stream for its shelter operations.

What happened to the raccoon itself after it was found, or whether it faced any consequences beyond a hangover, was not addressed in the available reporting. For now, the animal's legacy in Hanover County is administrative rather than animal: eight new body cameras, a January rollout date, and a merchandise line that outperformed a year of ordinary fundraising by a factor of 14.