
The Intelligent Life of the City Raccoon - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/34/adaptation/the-intelligent-life-of-the-city-raccoon-rp
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EvanAnderson
The bit about creating latches that require opposable thumbs is vaguely
troubling to me. Creating selection pressure for opposable thumbs in raccoons
(or some functionally similar anatomy like the sesamoid in pandas) seems like
a very bad idea. Raccoons with opposable thumbs are nightmare fuel to me.

ed: Misspelling. Thanks!

~~~
disconcision
i've wondered what pest animals might become given a million-year urban
civilization. hands for sure. racoons become elves, miniature versions of
ourselves, lurking in the shadows.

~~~
EvanAnderson
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8436265](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8436265)

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notmarkus
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8435358](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8435358)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9419874](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9419874)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11410676](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11410676)

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gerbilly
Another reason to fear them: Raccoon Roundworm, which they spread through
their feces.

It can destroy your eyes and brain!

Sometimes raccoons crap near my house, and I practically put on a hazmat suit
to clean it up (I wear disposable gloves, pour boiling water over the site and
then double bag it before throwing it in the trash,)

[...] zoonotic infection of humans is rare, though extremely dangerous due to
the ability of the parasite's larvae to migrate into brain tissue and cause
damage. Concern for human infection has been increasing over the years due to
urbanization of rural areas resulting in the increase in proximity and
potential human interaction with raccoons.[1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baylisascaris_procyonis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baylisascaris_procyonis)

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rdtsc
Well they are called trash pandas for a reason. I had a family of those -- a
mother with a few young live across the street. But only figured out what it
was after my tall trashcans with heavy lids somehow ended up with torn trash
bags in them. I had no idea racoons can be that smart & determined.

I was warned not to get close or corner them they can be vicious. What
eventually stopped them was putting a heavy rock on the trashcan lid. It
seemed to have worked so far.

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shijie
This is a shot in the dark, but some time ago, someone on HN posted a link to
a science fiction short story about a few animal species that thrived and
became intelligent in a post-apocalyptic, post-human world. One species was
raccoons, along with ravens, who built air balloons for transportation.
Fascinating read. I've been trying to find it for months. If anyone knows the
story, please let me know. That would be wonderful.

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hughdbrown
I knew this article would be about Toronto before I clicked on the link. On a
typical visit to Toronto, I will see more raccoons than police officers. The
city is either over-raccooned or under-policed, depending on your perspective.

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wtbob
If there's a problem with raccoons, why not just turn to mankind's tried-and-
true friend in dealing with animals: dogs? I imagine a medium-sized pair of
dogs could make pretty quick work of most raccoons. And folks _like_ dogs in
their homes, so it's a win-win!

Large cats, too, might work.

~~~
trhway
>If there's a problem with raccoons, why not just turn to mankind's tried-and-
true friend in dealing with animals: dogs?

so many wrong things in your statement.

Bloodbathing raccoons, highly intelligent animals, just because one is too
lazy to implement simple solutions to coexist! When we lived in the duplex in
Palo Alto bunch of years ago there was a large family of raccoons. It was
great and fun.

Yes, the dogs would go out of their way to protect their humans and the house
from whatever, raccoons included. Yet putting them into such situation
unnecessary (even if dogs had good chances to avoid being harmed - and they
don't as raccoons are pretty serious animals) is just a violation of that
trust relationship between dogs and their humans.

~~~
wtbob
> Bloodbathing raccoons, highly intelligent animals, just because one is too
> lazy to implement simple solutions to coexist!

I don't think I want to coexist with something which carries deadly diseases
and is violent. Alternatively, coexistence with violent, disease-ridden
animals consists of me living in location A and them living in location B,
where locations A & B are well-separated.

~~~
trhway
>I don't think I want to coexist with something which carries deadly diseases
and is violent.

do you mean humans? :) Anything else taken together, including raccoons,
deadly snakes and hurricanes, is the distant second when we talk about danger
to you from somebody carrying deadly diseases and the danger of violence.

>coexistence with violent, disease-ridden animals consists of me living in
location A and them living in location B, where locations A & B are well-
separated.

so, you're living alone far and well-separated from other people i guess :)

