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TORONTO —  A dead raccoon earned itself a sidewalk memorial and trending Twitter hashtag in less than 24 hours in Toronto.

It all started when a citizen alerted the city to a dead raccoon on the sidewalk just after 9 a.m. on Thursday.

The city responded and said that Animal Services would be out there right away to retrieve the raccoon.

Unfortunately, that was not the case. Hours went by and nobody came.

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Around noon, someone put a note next to the raccoon that said “Rest dear raccoon, help is on the way from the city.”

A memorial of sorts began to form next to the raccoon as hours passed, catching the eye of City Councillor Norm Kelly, who also asked the city to take action.

The city’s response?

Even more hours passed and Animal Services failed to show up for the lifeless raccoon — which took on a life of its own as #DeadRacoonTO took off on social media and the memorial for the raccoon – who some named Conrad – grew even bigger.

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Some left markers and a card so passersby could add their own wishes of condolence for the raccoon.

Flowers piled up and the original raccoon-spotter tweeted at the city again that the raccoon remained on the sidewalk at 8:20 p.m., almost 12 hours past his original tweet.

As the sun set, a candlelight vigil began at the makeshift memorial.

A donation box appeared, saying that the city would only move the raccoon when the proper amount of funds were raised to help move the critter “into a proper burial.”

Finally, Animal Services arrived on scene at 11 p.m.

As a small crowd watched, the raccoon was placed into a trash bag. The worker remarked, “Seriously, it’s a dead raccoon.”

One last candle was lit for the dead raccoon, with City Councillor Norm tweeting out a memorial for the dead critter.