Raccoons

Raccoons: Winter Rascals

The winter months are lean months for the animals that remain active year round. Since there is less food generally available, these animals are often more visible because they collect around concentrated sources of food such as bird feeders. Their hunger provides a chance to see those animals up close that rarely deign to accept offerings in August. This time of year, my husband and I can hardly keep our bird and squirrel feeders stocked with seeds, for the animals eat the seeds as fast as we fill the feeders.

Birds and squirrels aren’t the only visitors to our feeders now that the cold has set in. Raccoons have become regular nightly visitors as well, necessitating that the compost bucket and recycling can are moved indoors when darkness falls. Their sensitive noses and nimble fingers direct them to any potential food source and ensure it is opened, whether or not the lid is firmly in place. They have even unscrewed bottle tops to get at apple juice inside!

Although most people think that raccoons wash their food before they eat it, they aren’t nearly so fastidious as we assume. Their fingers are very sensitive, and this sensitivity is enhanced by water, so that by manipulating their food in water they are better able to feel it. The sense of touch is very important to them. If you find their footprints in the muddy banks of a stream, observe how delicate the front paws are—they look like the handprints of a skinny human baby. The prints from their back feet look like tiny and skinny human feet as well.

The black bandit mask and ringed tail make raccoons among the easiest mammals to identify. Because the back legs are longer than the front, they tend to look hunched up and ungainly. They can, however, run surprisingly fast and are adept at climbing trees, especially when threatened. They are common over the entire state as well as most of the USA, with the exception of the extremes in the western deserts and high mountains.

Raccoons, like skunks and opossums, are omnivores that are mostly nocturnal. Raccoons tend to focus more on vegetable matter and are the most common visitors to bird feeders, while skunks prefer animal matter, including insects. However, either eats anything it can find, and one of the favored foods of raccoons is crayfish. The mostly insectivorous skunks, by the way, are helpful to have in your garden and also commonly dig up yellow jacket nests.

Raccoons are also larger than either skunks or opossums and can reach 20 pounds or more in weight. They have adapted to humans and live in suburbs as well as forests. They nest in hollow trees, underground dens, or even in human-built spaces under homes or out buildings. Scavenging along roadsides, they are frequently killed by cars.

Among animals that carry rabies, raccoons are the most commonly encountered, in part because they frequent areas close to humans. Stay away from raccoons that are abroad in daylight or are otherwise acting strangely.

In addition to their human-like hands and feet, raccoons also share a behavioral trait with us. The mothers care for the young for an extended period of time. Litters of 2-5 young are born once a year, in the spring, and the young raccoons remain with the mother throughout their first summer and winter. She teaches them where and how to forage for food and protects them from predators. Normally solitary, raccoons found in pairs or groups are usually a mother and her kits.

Batten down your bird feeders and compost buckets. Now that wintertime is really here, so are those hungry and curious rascally raccoons!

PHOTO: Raccoon at night (with night-vision lens)

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