

The Intelligent Life of the City Raccoon - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/18/genius/the-intelligent-life-of-the-city-raccoon?utm_source=tss&utm_medium=desktop&utm_campaign=linkfrom

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tzs
> While both rural and city racoons readily approached familiar containers,
> they dealt differently with unfamiliar ones. Where rural raccoons took a
> long time to approach novel containers, city raccoons would attack them the
> moment she turned her back.

I wonder if part of this could be due to differences between city and rural
attitudes toward killing cute animals?

In cities, we tend to try to deal with a raccoon getting into our stuff by
replacing the container with something harder for the raccoon to open, or
moving it somewhere else. We try to stop the animal without harming it, even
if this inconveniences us. If it is particularly troublesome, we try to trap
it without harming it, and relocate it. It takes a lot to get us to go all the
way to the kill it option.

In rural areas, we are much more likely to go straight from "there's a raccoon
messing with my stuff" to "kill it".

~~~
CONTRARlAN
I'm sure you didn't mean to, but that comment comes across as an easy
stereotype that sees city-dwellers as respecters of nature and rural people as
killers.

The other thing is, my own anecdotal experience contrasts with your own
anecdotal experience. (For what that's worth, which isn't much, I admit.)

I've lived in big cities almost all my life and people around me have killed
or otherwise sought to harm raccoons on numerous occasions. They're thought of
as pest, and in cities, pests abound unless you do drastic things. I've heard
raccoons killed outside my window, I've seen bunnies dead from being fed rat
poison, etc. In big cities. There's the pests angle, but there's also a fear
of animals that seems to be associated with a lack of familiarity with and
experience around animals that rural settings are more conducive to having.

By contrast, the years I spent living in rural places I encountered much more
sensible attitudes towards things like raccoons. I found that people who live
somewhere that leaves one more aware of one's place in nature have more
respect for it.

Of course, there were numerous exceptions to both dynamics. And again, just my
experience, but I think the notion that city-dwellers are somehow friendlier
to nature is a too-easy misconception that's fueled mostly by the us-vs.-them
narrative that's being pushed on us by politicians and the media alike.
Country-dwellers hate nature! City-dwellers love nature! It's just too easy,
too lacking nuance.

And then there's the whole problem to get around of cities being the most
subdued nature there is: pouring concrete and asphalt over a large piece of
nature and then claiming some kind of moral authority is a difficult concept
for me. Manhattan used to be populated by the Lenape...

I know that per-capita you could make a strong case that cities have lower
impact per capita, but something about that just doesn't feel sufficient to
me.

~~~
tzs
I wasn't thinking that city people are respecters of nature or rural people
hate nature. It's more a consequence of what kind of activities take place in
cities vs. rural areas.

For instance, rural raccoons are far more likely than city raccoons to have
people in their territory that are keeping chickens for meat and/or eggs. This
gives rural raccoons an opportunity to do more damage than their city cousins,
and so also increases the chances they will draw a severe response.

Rural people also have more options for lethal force. Raccoons have been
bothering your chickens? Go out the next night with your shotgun and blow the
raccoons away. Try that in a city to deal with a raccoon trying to get into
your recycle bin and you are likely to soon have far bigger problems than the
raccoons.

Cities are also more likely to require permits or licenses to kill or trap an
animal.

~~~
CONTRARlAN
I understand you better now, but I still see it a bit differently. People with
chickens tend to think ahead about how to keep them from being eaten.

People with cats, on the other hand, tend to just kill the thing that's
threatening their cat.

And rural settings have a more endless supply of threats. Yeah, you could go
out every single night with your raccoon, or you could put up an electric
fence.

Also, not one of the cases I've seen in the city sought permits to trap or
kill. When you live somewhere where there are murders, who gives a crap about
an animal?

I think we're both right, honestly, but I think the city situation is far more
complicated-and far less raccoon-friendly–than you think. But I get where
you're coming from.

------
breadbox
I wonder if also equipping containers with dummy latches would help -- some
mechanism with moving parts that messing with gives the sensation of making
progress, but ultimately opens nothing. A honeypot handle, if you will.

------
duopixel
When I see stray dogs in Mexico they always have a submissive demeanor and a
facial expression that invariably evokes pity. I suppose being an aggressive
stray dog is a one-way ticket out of the gene pool, so submissive/pity
inducing dogs are naturally selected in an urban setting.

------
ksar
Torontonian Raccoons are resilient but for the most part try and stay out of
sight/out of the way of humans. However, I can't let my dog out into our
backyard at night in Toronto. I'm pretty much guaranteed a trip to the vet.

~~~
mikestew
We got rid of our dog door because of raccoons. 3:00 in the morning, me
dancing around in the backyard in my underwear trying to figure out how to
seperate raccoon and dog, and wondering how in suburban Seattle to quietly
finish off the half dead raccoon and/or dog when it's over.

I don't mean to play up the "pit bulls are tough" trope, but damn that's the
only dog I've seen walk away from a 'coon with only a few scratches, no trip
to the vet. It was the raccoon's lucky day, too, as he scampered off to tell
his friends. I'm serious, that's what the raccoon did, because we haven't seen
a raccoon in the neighborhood three years since.

------
pauljarvis
There's a raccoon who destroys my veggie patch almost nightly. It doesn't
matter how secure I make it, how much mesh/wire/etc I use to try to protect
it.

The raccoon is smarter than I am. I'm considering moving.

------
drussell
Can't say the same about pigeons though. I swear cities make them dumber.

~~~
CONTRARlAN
Spend some time in Manhattan and the concept of carrier pigeons becomes
impossible to believe.

