Anyone who’s ever tried to raccoon-proof garbage cans knows the little critters are smart and quick to adapt. Now studies suggest we’re building a new race of super-smart urban raccoons, and we’re doing it with the same tools we use to control them.
The Success of the Urban Raccoon
Raccoons may be natural forest dwellers, but they love the big city lights. In cities where they have a presence, such as New York, Toronto and Chicago, raccoons flourish. Toronto has a raccoon population 50 times larger than in the surrounding countryside.
Urban raccoons are bigger than their forest brethren — they’ve grown 20 percent larger over the last 70 years, gobbling up our leftover pizzas, pet food and other scraps. Inedible for us, but an all-you-can-eat buffet for a clever omnivore.
Building a Bigger Brain
As any animal control specialist can tell you, controlling raccoons is a growing problem. They were smart before we started challenging them with locked garbage bins and other raccoon deterrents.
The tiny masked bandits have a knack for overcoming every defense we throw up against them, and with every challenge they overcome, they get smarter. Even evolving raccoon-proof strategies don’t work. Studies suggest individual raccoons remember the solution to problems for at least three years.
The result is an arms race. We answer the question of how to catch raccoons, and the little vermin develop tricks to outwit us. So we develop new strategies and the wheel continues to turn.
Safe in the City
While cats and dogs offer some threat to raccoons, they only have two real predators in urban settings: humans and automobiles. However, the number of raccoon road kills in an urban center doesn’t match the animal population. They’ve learned how to avoid cars.
Battling for Supremacy
So it’s come to this: a battle for control of our nation’s cities. On the one hand, an intelligent, versatile creature with an adaptable brain and amazing problem-solving skills. On the other…wait. Was I just referring to humans or raccoons?
From a pest control problem, super-smart raccoons are a nightmare. They may look cute, but they also carry rabies and other diseases, deliver nasty bites, and cause millions of dollars in building damage every year. It’s a fight we have to win.
From a scientific viewpoint, however, the success of the urban raccoon is fascinating. We’re watching an animal get stronger and smarter before our very eyes. The raccoon’s response to challenges and a new diet could mirror events in our own ancestry. Scientists have long speculated changes in human diet increased our intelligence and size, and here we have the same effect appearing in raccoons, and in a remarkably short period.
I know. They’re pests and we need to control them. That doesn’t mean I can’t respect them.Shane Jones
