I think there are few animals more appealing to look at than “bandit-masked” raccoons, which are about the size of a big cat. A North American animal, you can find them in many habitats, from forests to prairies to cities. Raccoons are omnivores and effective gatherers of all types of food — including trash (if you’ve ever seen the mess they can make with a trash can, you’ll know why they’re not everyone’s favorites). They have very nimble front paws with long fingers and are adept at manipulating their food.
I came this group of raccoons in Stanley Park, Vancouver’s beautiful nature oasis. They were alongside the Seawall Trail with encircles the park, a beautiful, flat easy trail to hike, with great views of the city’s skyline, North Vancouver, and the Lion’s Gate bridge. These little mouchers sat there like a group of dogs waiting for a treat. They were being feed live minnows by a woman fishing for them on the seawall. She was catching small bait fish in large numbers and every few minutes would throw minnows to these eager raccoons. After all, how could you resist feeding such cute animals?
And they are smart.
When my kids were young, we used to camp every summer in Maine, at a site where raccoons came every night to feast at the cans. One year I decided I’d had enough, and brought chain tethers to keep the lids on. Worked fine, the lids stayed quiet all night.
But in the morning, when we left our tents, we found that our two stryofoam coolers (which were not in use) had been shredded, all the implements from the table were on the ground, and the ropes securing our storage tarp had been gnawed through. Curiously…or perhaps intentionally…no foodstuff was touched.
We looked around, looked at each other, and decided “Message received, sir!” and headed down the hill to retrieve and discard the tethers.
Yes, that sounds about in character for them. Cute, but cunning.
When there is a global Holocaust someday, it will not be the insects that take over the world. It will be the raccoons! Or at least the raccoons will be the commanders. The insects might be their foot soldiers.