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Slowly, the zoo rehabilitated Macro. He lost two-thirds of his body weight. After spending an estimated six years as a pet, he learned how to be a real raccoon. He met another raccoon for what might have been the first time in his adult life.

On Saturday,��Macro was euthanized when staff discovered a large mass in one of his kidneys and kidney stones in the other. Estimated to be about eight years old, Macro’s story is one of redemption — but also a cautionary tale about the harm we sometimes impart on the wildlife around us, the need to coexist with city animals and how we can, at times, take it too far.

Whoever raised Macro certainly did so.

He was raised in a house as a pet, fed a poor diet. He would have been separated from his mother at an early age, pc28����Zoo wildlife keeper Josh Narjes said, and wouldn’t have learned the skills he needed to survive in the wild.

Worse yet, by the time he was confiscated by authorities at about six years old, he was fully habituated to people. If he was released into the wild then, he would have had no natural fear of humans. He might have entered the backdoor to grab a snack when you weren’t looking.

Deemed unreleasable, the wildlife rehab centre would have been faced with a choice: euthanize him or find him a home. Luckily, the zoo had space.

This is an all-too-common plight. Many of the zoo’s domestic animals — including a bald eagle, a cougar and another raccoon, Manny — were once pets, confiscated by municipal authorities and taken in by wildlife rehab centres.

“People mean well when they find an orphaned baby raccoon or something and they bring it into their house and take care of it,” Narjes said. “But the reality is that the wildlife rehab centres are the places they should be going, not into your bedrooms.”

For raccoons, this is only one small part of their long, adventurous history with this city. They are part of Toronto’s identity, riding the subway,��shopping at Loblaws and memorialized in museums and �����Ի� . Sometimes, like Conrad the raccoon, they become celebrities, even in death.

Still, raccoons are wild. They naturally live in the woods. “They do not make good pets,” keeper Brittany Stanyon said. “They should not belong in your house.”

Raccoons are one of dozens of animals prohibited as pets in Toronto. Injured or ill seized animals can be euthanized by the city for “humane reasons,” according to bylaws.

Helped by zoo staff, Macro began to lose weight. Later in 2023, he was slowly introduced to his exhibit mate, Micro, first in a holding area with mesh separating the two, then with nothing between them. They squabbled at first, but eventually got along.

When winter came, Micro and Macro curled up together. Macro acted as a “heated blanket,” Stanyon said.

The zoo installed larger ramps in the exhibit, because Macro was too large for the ramps they had. He relearned some natural raccoon behaviours by searching for food in piles of mulch and leaves — although he never learned all his survival skills, because there was no need; after all, he would never again leave captivity.

And by the end, before he curled up in a ball on May 10, unusually still and uninterested in food, he was just starting to climb up trees. All this for a raccoon who, two years ago, couldn’t take more than two steps.

Macro had become, in the eyes of his keeper Narjes, “what a raccoon should have been.”