Volunteer finds ‘little guy’ in California trash can, photo shows. See the rare creature

A volunteer helping pick up trash around a California lake got a surprise when he heard a growl coming from a trash can.

“Lo and behold, there was a little guy looking back up at me,” Dana Berry told SFGate. He’d found a rare all-white baby raccoon that had become trapped in the bin.

A photo posted by the Trash Falcons volunteer group on Instagram shows the frightened creature peering up from the garbage. The group cleans up trash around Lake Merritt in downtown Oakland.

A video with the post shows Berry gently tip the bin over so the raccoon can escape. The animal then scampers up a nearby tree.

“Enjoy the tree little buddy!” the Instagram caption reads.

Creatures born with leucism can be all or partly white due to a lack of pigmentation in their skin, but they lack the red eyes of creatures with albinism, the National Park Service said.

Leucism is rare in animals, especially since it eliminates the protective coloration of many species, making them less likely to survive and pass on the genetic anomaly, Treehugger.com said.

“I don’t think we’ve ever had anything of that magnitude before,” Richard Shirk, Trash Falcons co-founder, told SFGate. Volunteers have in the past rescued turtles.

This story was originally published October 17, 2023 at 11:12 AM with the headline "Volunteer finds ‘little guy’ in California trash can, photo shows. See the rare creature."