CHAPTER 1 THE RACCOON IN THE TRASH CAN ANYTOWN USA WHEN YOU THINK OF WILD ANIMALS INVADING THE BACKYARD WHAT IS THE FIRST IMAGE THAT COMES TO MIND IF YOU LIVE IN NORTH AMERICA CHANCES ARE IT'S THE FAMILIAR MASKED FACE BELOW Raccoons are a nuisance They raid our garbage cans come through pet doors to snack from the cat's dish or snatch a pizza from the kitchen counter when our backs are turned We worry that they might carry rabies But at the same time raccoons are well pretty adorable How did raccoons come to be the familiar creatures raiding our garbage cans Raccoons probably got used to human beings well before Europeans came to the Americas The word raccoon is borrowed from the native Powhatan word raugroughoun By the time settlers began cutting down forests to plant crops the raccoon was already accustomed to raiding the garbage piles on the edge of villages perhaps even stealing fish from the fish traps the Powhatan set in local streams In the wild a raccoon will claim a home range It will patrol this territory looking for food and mates and defend it against other raccoons It may make several dens throughout its home range often using the former burrows of foxes or woodchucks or a hollow tree
RACCOON FACTS This familiar mammal is the most common and widespread medium sized carnivore in North America Since raccoons drink and forage near water a permanent source of water is necessary for them to survive whether they live in the city or the country SCIENTIFIC NAME Procyon lotor ALSO KNOWN AS Common raccoon northern raccoon RELATED TO Raccoons are distantly related to weasels and skunks and are more closely related to coatis and kinkajous of Central and South America SIZE Up to 3 feet 1 m long from the nose to the tip of the tail and about 13 to 15 pounds about 6 to 7kg NATIVE TO NORTH AMERICA Yes Raccoons are found throughout the lower forty eight states of the United States Their range extends up into southern Canada and down as far as Panama in Central America ENDANGERED No Raccoons are listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature as a Species of Least Concern
It turns out that we humans have provided excellent substitutes for both kinds of natural den sites Attic crawl spaces and gaps under the eaves of a roof or under a deck or a porch make excellent burrows A chimney is just about the same diameter as the hollow trees the raccoons favor in more natural settings MEASURING SUCCESS Once it's moved into human space why is the raccoon so successful Biologists point to several traits The first is body size Raccoons are mesocarnivores which means they are medium sized meso mammals that get up to three quarters of their diet as meat That's where carnivore comes in We humans offer a nonstop banquet of meat based pet food kitchen garbage and remnants of takeout Researcher Stanley Gehrt of Ohio State University has even seen fights break out among urban raccoons over french fries and doughnuts The second trait underlying the raccoon success is its ability to climb Raccoons have the claws flexible spine and agility required to scale trees and buildings This allows them to escape predators exploit new food sources and take advantage of more and better den sites The third trait is the animals dexterity the raccoon s ability to manipulate objects with its handlike paws The whole paw of the raccoon appears to work as a sensory organ Whiskers on the paws help the animal identify objects by feel
Biologist Andrew Iwaniuk conducted a study of dexterity in carnivores ranking them on a scale of 1 to 21 Hyenas ranked near the bottom raccoons near the top Finally raccoons are really smart Raccoons in the wild and in captivity share two traits linked to intelligence they are curious and they are playful They explore their surroundings and often play with objects they find Gordon Burghardt of the University of Kentucky thinks that playfulness in species such as raccoons and cebus monkeys may have grown out of these animals need to search and probe among leaf litter under rocks and inside hollow logs The skills they use in foraging including handling objects recognizing edible foods and learning what s tasty and how to get it seem to translate into treating objects as toys Burghardt say Handy smart playful curious That sounds a lot like us Is it any wonder raccoons flourish alongside humans in our cities and suburbs ARE WE CREATING SUPER RACCOONS Urban raccoons live different lives than their wild cousins For example raccoons born in the city remain with their mothers longer than raccoons born in the wild They spend a full year learning the ways of city life what the best den sites are and where to find them before setting off on their own But that may not be the most significant way in which city life is changing raccoons Suzanne E MacDonald a psychologist at York University in Toronto Canada believes humans may be inadvertently creating a race of super raccoons As we try to control the animals we are providing them with harder and harder puzzles For example to keep them out of our trash we have raccoon proof trash barrels Only the smartest raccoons figure out how to get into these barrels This ends up ensuring that only the smartest animals thrive and pass on their genes to the next generation of raccoons FROM RASCAL TO RASHUTKART After the publication of Rascal Sterling North's 1963 children's book about life with his pet raccoon children the world over dreamed of having their own masked Rascal Rascal was made into a movie by Walt Disney in 1969 Later the story was made into an anime series Araguma rasukaru Rascal the raccoon that aired in Japan in 1977 The series was so popular that Japanese families wanted to have raccoons for pets Japan imported about eighteen hundred raccoons to meet the demand Some of the animals escaped and bred As a result this iconic North American mammal is found throughout Japan where it competes for space and food with the tanuki or raccoon dog a raccoon species native to Japan
