‘Drunk’ raccoons seen stumbling around neighborhood

(CNN) — We’ve all heard the phrase drunk as a skunk — but some raccoons in Canada are taking that one to heart.

People living in an Ottawa community say they’ve noticed several raccoons who appear to be quite tipsy. 

Some have even passed out in yards. 

Julie Fong’s husband first noticed a raccoon just behind their house and it looked like he’d had one too many.

“He said it was sort of stumbling along, just looking completely off as sort of somebody who may have had a few extra libations would be walking along as,” Fong said. 

Later that day fong says an officer came to their door.

Apparently someone had called about the animal, who by that point was sleeping it off.

“There was a drunk raccoon under our deck,” Fong explained. 

No, the raccoons haven’t been visiting the local bar. It’s more likely that they’ve been overindulging on fermented fruit, according to one Ottawa naturalist.

He didn’t examine the raccoons but says there’s an abundance of fruit falling from trees this year.

“And it’s possible that some of the fruit is fermenting under the heat and that these guys are getting a bit tipsy by eating that fermenting fruit,” naturalist Michael Runtz explains. 

Susan Mayo also saw an alleged inebriate snoozing in her neighbor’s backyard.

“It didn’t even move when I came close to it and then it would sort of like just kind of sit up, it didn’t move it’s back legs at all and then flop over and literally look like it was going back to sleep,” Mayo said.