

The Intelligent Life of the City Raccoon - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/18/genius/the-intelligent-life-of-the-city-raccoon

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goo
A raccoon recently snuck into my apartment in the middle of the Mission in SF,
and rampaged around the place in the middle of the night, ripping through
bread and leaving a huge mess. My roommate told me that he chased it back out
the window with a broom.

I was totally shocked, and thought that it must have been a one in a million
event. Of course, it happened again.

I would say it was a nice taste of the wild in the middle of the city, but
sweeping up the mess and wiping down all the paw prints was a huge pain.
Nature never ceases to impress.

~~~
eternalban
There is this fellow who climbs down the old metal ladders we have in our
backyard in Brooklyn. She comes down to help herself to the dry cat food.
Really interesting eating habits: dips her fingers in the water bowl and then
scoops up cat food with both hands and munches along. Then climbs back up to
the tree and finishes it off with a few leaves of the Berry tree.

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kqr2
This article has a photo of the "raccoon proof" double latch design:

[http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/08/26/toronto_designer_...](http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/08/26/toronto_designer_invents_raccoonproof_green_bin.html)

It looks like you would need opposable thumbs to disengage both latches at the
same time.

~~~
dllthomas
You're ignoring the possibility of teamwork.

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mertd
> Lynne Sneddon of the University of Liverpool, for example, found that bold
> rainbow trout learn better and more quickly than shy ones.

Life lessons from a rainbow trout...

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bitwize
"What do you think we have these wonderfully articulated fingers for? To
scratch our asses?"

\--A raccoon, in the movie _The Great Outdoors_

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seanalltogether
I wonder what it is about his design that requires an opposable thumb? Maybe
like a vertical rod you'd have to grip and pull down?

~~~
GuiA
Likely a lid that requires pressure on two opposite faces to open- a bit like
the kid proof pill bottles.

~~~
kijin
Couldn't a raccoon work around that limitation by placing two paws on opposite
sides of the mechanism and squeezing?

Unless the mechanism requires two hands with opposable thumbs (four points of
pressure)... in which case two raccoons could work together and share the
spoils.

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subdane
Timely. A raccoon walked up to my stoop in Downtown Brooklyn last week. I've
been there 19 years and have never seen such a thing and I thought to myself,
how the hell does a raccoon survive in Brooklyn?

~~~
CaveTech
Raccoons are incredibly common here in Downtown Toronto. A friend of mine even
had issues with them coming onto her 4th story balcony and throwing her flower
pots to the ground below. They're also no longer scared of humans at all, and
will either completely ignore you or become aggressive.

I think we'll have to start culling them within a few years, they're becoming
an infestation and are simply too intelligent for their own good.

~~~
trhway
>I think we'll have to start culling them within a few years, they're becoming
an infestation and are simply too intelligent for their own good.

i wonder why we tend to treat that as infestation instead of celebrating that
at least some wildlife is able to coexists with us. We lived in a house in
Palo Alto and the big family of racoons lived under the house and on the
nearby redwoods. It was pretty enjoyable and fun.

~~~
dharmach
Must watch "Pom Poko (1994)", if you haven't already.

~~~
serf
I, too, have always wanted to beat away police officers with my testicles. [0]

[0] [http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xlft8n_pom-poko-balls-
again...](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xlft8n_pom-poko-balls-against-
police_animals)

(not really NSFW unless you work for some ultra-conservative group of some
sort. It's from an animated film.)

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chrisbennet
Raccoons carry a virus [Baylisascaris procyonis] that is especially bad for
humans. [1] Be very careful when cleaning up area's that may have raccoon
feces such as near trash cans. By careful, I mean don't inhale the dust from
aggressive sweeping, leaf blowing, etc.

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

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carterehsmith
Sprinkling the garbage bin with some bleach works well, raccoons won’t touch
it, plus it may kill some nasty bacteria on/in the bin, too.

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whitten
I wonder if a similar expansion and increase in intelligence is also occurring
with opossums. I had several near my house in Houston, and even had one house
invader that I found in my kitchen. After carefully moving it into a cat
carrier, I helped the opossum find a new home about a mile away at the bayou.

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sea6ear
Racoon Nation (PBS special) was pretty eye opening.

[http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/raccoon-
nation/full-...](http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/raccoon-nation/full-
episode/7558/)

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jackgavigan
_“They do go around trying systematically different things around that bin,
they play until something moves and then they keep working at that,” Treadwell
says._

That's basically fuzzing. They're furry fuzzers.

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chatwinra
Not really surprising, given how much trouble they gave Cyril Sneer.

~~~
soylentcola
Oh man...I had completely forgotten about that show.

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gegtik
My friend sprinkles crystalized coyote urine around his trash the night before
pickup and it keeps them away

... for now...

~~~
pyre
On the other hand, think about how coyote urine is produced as a commercial
product. I doubt they just hire people to go collect it in the wild...

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coldcode
If they ever break in and take our weapons we are all in trouble.

~~~
flatfilefan
2015 a mutant raccoon race with an opposing thumb paw gets an advantage with
new garbage can design and spreads in Toronto. 2030 they routinely get into
houses and hide to watch home owners to learn where they hide the key from the
reinforced food storage vaults. 2035 all drones in the country are armed to
shoot raccoons but they learn to steal human dress and so disguise themselves
2040 raccoons learn to read digits and open the codelocks. 2050 human race is
fighting a survival war against raccoon armed with stolen arms and drones that
got overzealous and confusing people for disguised raccoons.

Unfortunately I'm not Philip.K.Dick :-)

~~~
andrewd18
2051: One brave racoon escapes from a human-controlled racoon detention and
experimentation center. He steals a ship and heads out into the Milky Way.

2052: Rocket Racoon forms an alliance with a Flora Colossi named Groot.

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trhway
>Even Toronto Mayor Rob Ford confessed to the media that his family was too
frightened to take out their trash.

imagine the racoons after consuming remnants of crack in the Ford's thrash or
the racoons on withdrawal looking for the next hit

