Three pet raccoons that escaped by gnawing their way out of a garage have been reunited with their owner.

The stripy mammals chewed through a wire mesh window at the home of pet shop worker Jamie Sumner, who lives in Tameside, Greater Manchester last month.

One of the pets, a male, travelled nearly 10 miles, eventually being found in a shed on a farm in Charlesworth, near Glossop.

The other two, both females, were a bit closer to home – with one being found two weeks later in Jamie’s back garden. The other female was found just minutes away from Jamie’s home.

Jamie, 23, said he received more than 30 phone calls from people who had seen the raccoons after a story of their disappearance was published in the Manchester Evening News.

He said: "It was a relief when one the females came back to my garden while the other turned up nearby within a couple of weeks. That just left the male who was spotted by a farmer who called the RSPCA. I went out to the countryside after work and the RSPCA helped me catch him."

The male – who at around two feet long is slightly larger than the 1.5ft females – amazingly seems to have gained weight while in the wild and had apparently walked to Charlestown along a railway track.

RSPCA experts who helped recover him reckon the survived by eating food off bird tables, berries – and possibly even animals who had been run over by cars.

Jamie, who works in a pet shop in Manchester city centre, has had the raccoons for two years and also owns two cocker spaniels, a parrot called George and a six-foot anaconda called Titan, which he keeps in a tank in his lounge.

He added: "I have had to improve security in the garage since I got them back – there’s no way I’m letting them escape again."