Is there any “scientific” endeavor that reeks more of the early-modern white European tendency to rank everything in hierarchies that happen to favor traits that most resemble the people (or in this case, the species) doing the ranking?
Raccoons are a fairly social, highly dexterous species. Of course their intelligence resembles our own.
Rumor is chocolate exlax works for getting rid of raccoons. Whether they crap themselves to death or just learn very quickly “the food there will ef you up,” I don’t know.
Kary Mullis claimed that an encounter with a Raccoon from Outer Space gave him the insight on the polymerase chain reaction that won him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Don’t give up.
Not ‘sort of’ opposable thumbs, they have straight-up miniature human hands - with claws! Their front paw prints in the snow look like monkeys have been making some sort of ‘Pre-School Mural’ art. Their hind paw prints look like miniature Sasquatch prints. With claws.
One of my sister’s piano teachers had four boys, a multi-million-dollar house…and a pet raccoon. Even we didn’t cross it, and we tried to ride the cows.
Once I let the dogs out while I was waiting for my motorcycle to cool enough to cover. While the dogs were running around me I decided to put the cover on the bike. This involved laying on the ground next to the bike to fasten clips that held it on when wind blew. What I thought was my dog Lucy climbing over my chest was actually a raccoon. Before I could even scream, Lucy ran straight into the trash panda at full tilt. A crazy tumbling ball of fur went down the hillside. Lucy ran back up to me all waggy and happy, I ran her to the vet for a full body check – luckily not a scratch was on her. I was convinced the raccoon was rabid but my vet said no, it was probably just used to warming itself under my bike when I parked it and was surprised to find me there.
She said a rabid raccoon would have really fucked up my cavalier king charles. Lucy at 19lbs or so was smaller than the raccoon and less well armed.
Lucy had a number of raccoon and skunk run-ins.
They also like fish and chips still wrapped in paper. At least the ones at the animal sanctuary I used to volunteer at did.
My guess is abundance drives behavior. I can’t imagine even the laziest raccoon going hungry in that city.
Any green bin with remnants of KFC in it is going to be open and empty by morning.
Although they love meat or fish, raccoons are omnivores. One year my daughter decided to plant a row of corn in our garden as an experiment. The night before we were going to harvest, all six stalks were trashed and every cob had a number of bites out of it.
Now, imagine waking up to find that in several acres of our cornfield, and you’ll understand why I hate raccoons. On field corn, the stalks will stretch up to 8-10 feet to reach sunlight. Each stalk can have 5-6 ears. The raccoon family went down the row like fingers on piano keys, yanking off each ear, taking one bite, and tossing it to the ground. I’m not sure how smart they are, because they strip hundreds of ears in one night and still can’t figure out that they’re ALL unripe.
Well, now, I’m thinking about planting corn in the yard just so I can surgically implant Chocolate Ex-Lax in the ripening ears. “Eat up, you fuzzy Mother-F#@kers…”
Trash Pandas? Jeez, I thought I heard every name for raccoons, but that’s the first I heard of that one! Not enough profanity, I suppose.
What is the neural density of crows?
If cows don’t need to think as much as predators, what might they be doing with the extra processing power?
Crows? It must be close to that of neutron stars. I’ve seen them teasing cottontails, for no good reason. My high school biology teacher said that when she was a kid, some people would trap them and teach them ‘people words’.
ESCAPE! …at least, that’s been my experience. That, and how to get to those sticky, delicious sunflowers growing in the ditch outside of the pasture. Cows are as relentlessly curious as cats, but are as easy to train as dogs. I trained our ‘boss’ cow to follow me as I clapped my hands. The rest of the herd will follow her. It made it a lot easier to move our pitiful little herd from one pasture to another. Cows also have X-ray vision. They know when you’re hiding a vaccination syringe.
I think the main difference is that deep down, most dogs aim to please people. Sure, dogs mess up, but they can be trained to stop. The one thing I’ve ever trained a cat to do is come when I call - only because there was food involved.
Most cats want people to do what pleases the cat. If the cat is aggressive, and you don’t do what it wants, there will be revenge. What form it takes depends upon the cat, and what message it wants to send.
Walking on your keyboard because they want attention is nothing compared to dogs howling and barking and whining because they want attention.
I have a cat that yowls repeatedly. She’s an indoor cat, and many times I’ve wished she was a dog so that I could put her outside while I’m trying to work. She hates to be alone, which makes putting her somewhere else and dealing with the yowling later a bad option. The keyboard walk is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s followed by the attempts to disrupt typing by sitting on me - my lap, my chest, my shoulders, my head - until I’m forced to move. If I sit back down, the cycle repeats. If she gets really upset, it escalates to batting with the paws, and then biting. The only reason I’ve been able to type this long is because she’s asleep.
Raccoons are amazing creatures to watch. From their intelligence to their social behaviors. The ones around my place are enormous, often being mistaken for small dogs walking around. But yes, insanely intelligent animals.
Admire raccoons, but don’t like them.
Got bitten by a “pet” one, and have heard too many tales of destruction to want them around,
About six years back, one climbed up onto my balcony and tried to get into my dog’s kibble bin. Kira barked at her through the glass, and she did this:
I think after one skunk run in, she would be a leash dog from then on 
Are you affixing anti-handling devices according to manufacturer recommendations; or are you using lame post-Ottawa-Treaty ‘raccoon-proof’ cans?
