(This essay was cited by expertrs on wild animals :-)
The Raccoons – why are they considered to be a pest?
Written by Jannicke Lindoe
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Mammalia Order: Carnivor Family: Procyonidae Genera: Procyon Species: Procyon lotor
The raccoon is a nocturnal animal, and is therefore not commonly spotted
in the wild. The latin name lotor (The Norwegian name is “vaskebjorn”,
which translates into “washing bear”…) refers to the captive raccoons
habit of washing their food, although scientists believe this is a “fixed
motor pattern” for finding aquatic food, and not actually for the purpose
of cleaning the food before eating it… In the Native American mythology
the raccoon is known as the trickster, always outwitting its enemies.
With its curiosity and intelligence it can be a bit of a troublemaker!
We all know what happened to the curious cat…
They inhabit the America’s, Canada, and even parts of Mexico and the Central
America. Some species are also found in Asia and Europe, especially in
Germany. I will come back to that later!
Identifying features and various facts
The raccoon has unmistakable properties, with its black- greyish and white-
yellowish coat, the characteristic black face mask, and a bushy tail with
5 to 7 black and white stripes, the tip always being black. It is medium-
sized and fairly heavily built, with 5 fingers on each “hand”. The fingers
are very mobile and sensitive, with non- retractile claws. The weight
varies between 5 kg to 18 kg, and their length between 60 cm to 105 cm,
not including the tail. They are members of the bear family, and very
strong for their size.
Being plantigrade, they are not fast runners. Climbing trees on the other
hand, is one of their specialities. They can descend a tree head first.
If avoidable, they don’t enter deep waters, but they are very capable
swimmers. Since nocturnal, their sense of hearing, smell and sight are
well developed. They have different sounds for communication, that may
sound to us like snarls, grawls or hiss’.
Racoons are real survivors, who can occupy almost all environments and
habitats, excluding desert and alpine areas, as they need to drink water
every day. They prefer to live in leaf forests near rivers and streams,
having a permanent home. A suitable dwelling can be anything from a hollow
log, to the extreme of an old crows nest. They like their housing to be
at least 15 feet above the ground, and often have more than one den within
their home range. They also like it clean, and use a common spot in the
forest as a latrine. The males are very protective about their territory.
The females are not. As a consequence, a male’s home range can overlap
several females’. Even though the raccoons are solitary animals, they
sometimes form small colonies.
Mating season is in the spring. After 63 to 65 days gestation, the female
gives birth to 1 to 8 woolly furred, mask- and tail-stripe- less, blind
cubs. The fur markings appear after about 7 days. The eyes (and ears!)
open after 18 – 23 days. The female raises the cubs, and they have a social
family life. After 7 weeks they are big enough to run, climb, play, imitate
the adults, wrestle and have the occasional fist- fight. After 130 days
they have learned how to survive on their own, and start to wander further
and further away from home. After a year, they leave the home permanently.
The females reach sexual maturity after 9 – 10 months, males after about
one year (but they usually don’t get to breed until their second year).
Raccoons are not aggressive, but it will defend its young or itself if
it feels threatened.
The raccoon is truly omnivorous, and is not a specialized feeder. It is
rather opportunistic, and will eat just about anything, including fruit,
vegetables, berries, eggs, insects, small mammals, human waste, pet fish
and domestic animals. When hunting in streams or shallow pools, raccoons
cleverly turn over rocks and poke around with their paws. With their “hands”
they catch their prey, and study the potential food. Racoons will rarely
give up an opportunity to examine something they find interesting, like
a strange thing or smell. If they find a supply of food, they will return
until the food is spent. Sweetcorn is a raccoon- favourite, but they normally
don’t do much harm to cornfields (some farmers may disagree). However,
they might raid a corn- storage. If the food supply is rich, the vegetarian
diet is twice the carnivorous diet. In late summer and fall, the racoons
need to eat protein- and energy- rich food to build up fat reserves. They
rely on these reserves during the winter, but will eat anything they can
find, like carrions, if they get hungry.
Raccoons are not true hibernating animals, but can go into a kind of dormant
state if the winter is very cold or the weather is very bad. When dormant,
the physiology does not change, their body-temperature and heartbeat rate
etc. remains normal.
A raccoon can potentially live for over 16 years, but they seldom make
it over 7 years in the wild. Even though predators like the cougar, wolf,
great horned owl, coyote and alligator eats them if they get the chance,
the humans are responsible for killing most raccoons. They are treasured
for the fur, and often victims of traffic.
Pests and pets
Raccoons are very tolerant to human action, and smart enough to adapt
to almost every situation. With their intelligence and cleverness they
find both food and housing in the suburbs and the cities. Using their
“hands” they can open dustbins, water taps, doors, cat- flaps, windows,
and so on. They are especially prone to inhabit attics during the winter,
often using the storm sewers as subways, or climbing up other house structures.
Once they have found a suitable home which provides them warmth and shelter,
they will not readily leave it. Even if they are usually no threat to
the householder, they may harm the house. Common damage is torn isolation,
chewed electric wires, scratched house walls and bad smell from their
droppings. Nests can also be found under decks, and really any place they
take a liking to.
In their search for food around their turf, they may start to terrorise
the neighbourhood. The classic is the raiding of trashcans. If there is
a way to open it, they will probably find out how. Then they rip the bags
and seek through the garbage, leaving a bit of a mess. If they suspect
there is good food somewhere, they will try to gain access. Also non-foods
like paints and finishes can attract them, but the raccoons usually don’t
consume it. They may gnaw and chew on furniture or decorations. If there
are any insects living in the yard, the raccoon will find them with its
great nose. Looking for tasty grubs and insects they tear up lawns and
dig up heaps of the mold. Birdseeds and squirrel feeders are easy food
sources. Along with pet- fish and turtles in garden ponds. They are fond
of cat and dog food. Raccoons have also been known to kill domestic animals,
like cats. Sometimes they just roam around in the gardens, being of general
nuisance.
In 1934 the German Luftwaffe general and nazi Herman Goering released
two pairs of raccoons in the town Kassel, “to enrich the German fauna”.
More raccoons also escaped during WWII, when a stray bomb hit a raccoon-
farm near Berlin. The raccoons have been spreading and the population
has grown ever since, and the biologist Ulf Hohmann predicts the raccoons
to inhabit the whole of the European continent sooner or later. Some has
already migrated to neighbouring countries like Austria and France.
The “Raccoon Capital of Europe”, the town Kassel, is now heavily invaded
by raccoons. The number is estimated to be more than 100 raccoons per
square kilometre. (www.ba.no)
Almost every house has sealed off the attic and secured rubbish bins with
chicken wire or barbed wire. The town has hired an animal control inspector,
who’s only task is to deal with troublesome raccoons, and distressed house
owners. A university in the area are tagging the animals, to try to monitor
their activity. German biologists are faced with the task to chart how
these raccoons affect the native animal and plant community. Many approaches
are tried to handle the raccoon hassels, but I think the only real solution
is probably for the infested German people to learn how to live with the
raccoons.
“People in Germany are split into two parties: those who find racoons
cute and feed them, and those who resort to killing them to get rid of
what they consider a real plague," biologist Ulf Hohmann told BBC
News Online.
There are numerous stories about the little bandits, and these I found on a web page in a discussion forum:
“While camping in Patrick's Point State Park in CA, we put our food in the lockers designed to keep the critters out. During the night, the racoons came and opened the latch on the locker. I bought a lock figuring they hadn't been to locksmith school... yet...
While backpacking in Point Reyes National Seashore, my friend, who was diabetic, carried M&Ms in case his insulin got too high. During the night, racoons came into our tent and pulled the M&Ms out from the sweatshirt he was using for a pillow without waking either of us up.” (www.cryptozoology.com)
There are several “pest control” web pages offering traps and different products to keep the raccoons away, so this it is probably a big problem for a lot of American citizens.
Many people in the U.S. and Canada keep raccoons as pets. They are supposedly not too easy to handle, demands a firm and consistent upbringing, and a lot of patience. Raccoons continue to be notorious biters their whole life, in addition to being destructive and extremely self- willed. But still, a pet- raccoon owner used these words to describe them: adorable, affectionate, intelligent, crafty, huggable, amusing, maintenance free, grateful, good conversationalists and good companions. (www.mnsi.net)
I believe the worst part of the expanding invasion of urban areas by
raccoons, is that they carry diseases like rabies, Chagas disease and
canine and feline distemper. Some of these serious diseases can infect
humans and pets. One of the symptoms of both rabies and canine distemper
is a lack of fear of humans. It is supposedly a general rule that if you
see a raccoon during the day acting aggressively or strange, you should
stay away from it and call animal control, because it is likely to be
rabid. Luckily, there is a healthy dissension about this, since the raccoon
might have a good reason for being out, and be perfectly healthy. “Although
racoons are considered a primary rabies carrier in North America there
has never been an implication of a racoon passing the disease to a human.”
(www.bbc.co.uk)
“Rabies is common in raccoon populations, but they do not seem to the
spread the disease to other species easily. Passive and unaggressive while
infected by rabies, rabid raccoons are probably less likely to appear
than they would be if otherwise healthy (Tesky 2000).” (http://bss.sfsu.edu:224)
Some has experienced quite the opposite:
“We had a racoon living in our neighbourhood for several years. You don't
normally see racoons even when they are around, but this one would get
into hissy-fit macho fights with our cat at night through the glass window
to the deck; the cat inside, the racoon outside. One day my wife was working
outside in the yard when the racoon came around the corner of the house
and started to chase her. She managed to get inside the screen door while
the racoon started trying to scratch her through the screen. The racoon
had caught rabies. Racoons look very cute, but they are wild animals.
If they have caught rabies, they are also very dangerous. If you see a
racoon, stay away from it. If it is acting strangely, e.g. walking in
the open during the day or acting aggressively, call your local animal
control agency. You may feel badly about turning them in, but they are
already beyond hope and are a danger to you, your pets, and other racoons.”
(www.nearctica.com/biomes)
The survey “Distribution of introduced raccoons Procyon Lotor on the
Queen Charlotte Islands: implications for burrow-nesting seabirds” from
1997 deals with the current and potential impact raccoons have on the
existent seabird- colonies. Other earlier studies from the QCI, had demonstrated
that raccoons are capable of preying heavily on such colonies, if they
reach can them.
The QCI is an archipelago consisting of more than 150 islands, about 100
km off the coast of British Columbia. In the early 1940’s, raccoons were
introduced on the northern major island. In this research, 61 islands
were searched for evidence of raccoons. Of these, 25 were seabird islands.
The islands were chosen based on different factors, like how distant they
were, size and sea- currents. The survey methods used to detect raccoons
were shoreline “latrine circuits” and “spotlight counts” of the tidal
zone. These were carried out from offshore by night, scanning the beach
with a powerful spotlight, looking for the glow of raccoon eyes. Some
other unstandardized methods, like “spot- check” for scats, were also
conducted. Sign of raccoons were found on 35 of the 61 islands. On 3 of
the islands surveyed, which showed no signs, there had been earlier sightings.
These were added, to the total result of 39. 11 of these contained active
seabird colonies. Studies from some of these colonies showed a drastic
decline in the population of specific seabird species, after raccoon signs
were noted.
As the isolation of the islands increased, the raccoon signs were less
frequent. They were found on most of the islands that required a crossing
less than 400 m, and the frequency decreased up to a maximum crossing
of 950 m. The size of the island also played a role. This may be because
of lacking food resources, but such island may still be important stepping
stones in reaching more distant islands.
The results suggest that the dispersion of raccoons on the QCI “may pose
a significant conservation threat to the seabird populations”. Theoretically
raccoons may reach 80% of all burrow- nesting seabirds on the islands.
The real number is probably between 22 – 55%, when all data are taken
into consideration. The most important purpose of the survey was to identify
which islands needs monitoring. The islands were ranked in three classes
after calculated vulnerability. But then there is a risk that raccoons
can do great damage to distant colonies on unmonitored islands, if they
get to them by chance.
The conclusion was roughly that further research and probably a more conservative
approach are needed to protect the seabird colonies from the raccoons.
The research should include better or alternative ways of detection and
control, as well as ongoing monitoring. With the current eradication method
(shooting) it is very difficult to remove a raccoon population when it
is established, so it is important to detect them as soon as possible.
(Hartman, Eastman)
I can understand that raccoons can be a bit of a pest, especially if they
occupy your house and cause a lot of mayhem. In some areas the population
may have gotten too great, and there is need for control. I think it is
a bad thing that they live in the cities, both for the people there and
the animals themselves. But if you live in an area with raccoons, you
obviously should take precautions, or the blame is your own for the uninvited
houseguest. One can saw down branches that hang near the roof, and make
sure there is no entrance to the attic or chimney. Raccoons belong in
the wild nature, but we humans are probably the ones making them urbanize.
By cutting down the forest or exterminating other species, we are causing
disturbances in the fauna.
When it comes to raccoons migrating to new areas, threatening the native
species, I think it is important that scientist monitor the situation,
and if possible, limit the damages. Especially when it is the humans that
have tangled with nature in the first place. I hope that there will be
sufficient funds to continue or start research about alternative methods
to manage raccoons. Preferably one can develop a method that deals with
problems before killing is the only solution!
Sources:
www.cryptozoology.com, www.unitedmedia.com, www.bbc.co.uk, www.ba.no,
www.doyourownpestcontrol.com, www.bugspray.com, www.nearctica.com, www.mnsi.net,
http://bss.sfsu.edu:224 (San Francisco State University Department of
Geography; Geography 316: Biogeography; The Biogeography of the Raccoon
(Procyon lotor) by Kirsten Leising, student in Geography 316, Fall 2000),
Elsevier Science Ltd: “Distribution of introduced raccoons Procyon Lotor
on the Queen Charlotte Islands: implications for burrow- nesting seabirds”
by Lisa H. Hartman, Donald S. Eastman. http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Procyon_lotor.html