I saw a raccoon climb a chain-link fence!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

At least, I think it was a raccoon.

I was walking down Prince Edward Drive just now, and I saw an animal on the sidewalk ahead of me. It hesitated, unsure whether to cross the brightly-lit road or return to the bushes. I thought it was a cat at first, but as it made up its mind and crossed the road, I saw humped hindquarters. The shape wasn’t right for a cat.

The animal crossed the sidewalk on the other side and came up to the fence around the graveyard. I thought it would run along the base of the fence to a hole, but it just started straight up. A little later, it perched on top, then I saw its belly as it headed down the other side of the fence.

I had no idea raccoons could do that.

2

They’re limber little suckers, raccoons are. A friend has a second story deck, with bird feeders. The raccoons kept eating all the bird food, so they installed one of those child safety gates at the top of the deck steps. It didn’t stop them – they’d climb right over.

3

Not only are they great climbers, they are very dexterous. If you have a tame one for a pet, it can’t be left untended inside the house. They soon learn to take the tops off of jars, open various containers, and get at food in any way imaginable. [/]voice of experience.

4

Aren’t they also fastidious? Don’t they wash their food? I don’t think many other animals do that.

5

If water is handy they will swirl their food around in it. I don’t think cleanliness has anything to do with it, as dirty water suits them just fine. They will eat without putting the food in water if that’s the path of least resistance.

In nature, many things they eat, such as small fish, frogs, and so forth are found in the water.

6

Raccoons are:

  • great climbers
  • limber
  • dexterous
  • fastidious
  • horrible little vermin that eat my vegetable plants

(I’m getting an ad for “raccoon pest control”. yay!)

7

It’s not about cleanlness, it’s about poor eyesight. A buddy of mine worked at an animal rehab center in New Brunswick, and they’d get injured raccoons from time to time. They have terrible eyesight, and they do the “washing thing” with their hands to help identify stuff. They’ll put objects in water to improve the tactile sense of what they’ve got.

One of the raccoons at the rehab center used to knead my shoes. He could recognize Joe’s boots, so when he found the right shoes, he’d wait in front of Joe (Joe sometimes gave him Oreos). The raccoon was not tame though.

They’re also really, really filthy animals.

8

More than other animals? I figure any critter that lives outdoors is going to carry some vermin, but since raccoons spend so much time in and near water, I thought they might be cleaner.

9

I have a friend who tells a story he swears is true: He was riding home one night with six pies in boxes stacked on the rack of his bike with a bungee.

Suddenly, a (herd? crew? gang?) of raccoons surrounded him, knocked him over, and took three of the pies.

At least they left him some. I picture a raccoon wife at home somewhere, shaking her finger and admonishing, “When come, bring pie!”

10

While they can swim (really well too), they are actually reluctant to do so because they don’t have waterproof fur. So, they don’t go into the water nearly as much as you’d think (or hope they would). They are really, really musky (the little guy who was beating on my shoes made my eyes water, he smelled so bad) and being scavengers will happily sort trough all sorts of nasty muck. ETA: I also never once saw any of the raccoons grooming themselves like the other animals, but I wasn’t there very long, so I don’t know if they do or not, but they seemed perfectly fine to climb into their beds while covered in crap (literally).

So compared to the squirrels, rabbits, groundhogs, and the one-eyed fox they had at the wildlife rehab center, the raccoons were much more disgusting.

Also, I should have clarified above, where I said they had crappy eyesight. They have kickass night vision, but are either nearsighted or farsighted (I can’t remember which). The vet that took care of the injured wildlife also thought that part of the “washing” might have to do with the instinct to poke around in the mud looking for crayfish in the wild too, but all the raccoons that had temporary stays at the rehab center would throw new objects into the trough when they were trying to figure out what it was.

11

Missed the edit: There was a permanent resident raccoon who was tame. He was a lot cleaner, but he used to live with the barn cats and pretty much acted like he was a barn cat. I’d say he was about as clean as the average outdoor dog or cat, even though he still smelled musky.

The musky smell is what really left me with the impression that they were more foul. The musky smell is like an overpowering sweetness. I don’t know if they have some kind of nasty scent glands or what.

12

Obviously, raccoons in the wild watch David Letterman every night, so they like to play the home version of “Will It Float.”

13

They raid water gardens for fish or plant tubers. They won’t swim, but will use planting containers as stepping stones. As long as they can wade, they will mess with the pool, but they won’t swim in it. I keep planting containers aways from the edge of the pool for that reason.

14

I think “gang” is the right word here.

(And another collective noun is born…)

15

I had a coon climb over a six-foot gate, go into the chicken house, nab a duck off her nest, kill her, and drag her body BACK over the six-foot gate, to disappear into the darkness. I know this because of the blood trail and footprints. Who knew they could do that??? :eek:

16

It’s been many years since we used to have a raccoon who would come to our back door begging for food but I still remember the smell you described. I thought he must have had some kind of terminal illness. (Yeah, I know. You’re saying, “And you’re risking your life feeding him?!!” What can I say? We were much younger and more foolish back then.) After a couple of weeks, he stopped visiting and I’d figured he’d gone off to die.

The raccoons we used to feed while we were camping didn’t smell like that though. I don’t remember any particular smell coming off of them. (I know. I know. You’re saying, “Stop with with the feeding of the wild and possibly dangerous critters already!” But we were still young and foolish then too.)

17

This past weekend, I went to Boston to see my girlfriend. On the way home from the airport, we stopped off to visit her parents.

We’re sitting in the living room, listening to her mother talk and talk and talk and talk and talk. We’ve sort of half tuned her out. Which is why we noticed when we heard, from the fireplace… skritch skritch skritch

I cock an ear. My girlfriend says: “Did you hear that?”

Her mother: “I was talking!”

My girlfriend shrugs.

A minute or so later: skritch skritch skritch

My girlfriend: “You heard that, right?”

Her father: “It was probably the wind.”

Me: “No, it was something else. Sounds like a critter, actually.”

Her father: “The chimney’s capped.”

I knelt by the fireplace and listened carefully. Soon, from above: skritch skritch skritch

Me: “There’s definitely a critter. Do you have a flashlight?”

Her father retrieved a flashlight for me. I poked my head into the fireplace and slowly began opening the flue (squinting against the grit and ash that was dislodged into my face) while shining the light upward.

My girlfriend retreated to the other end of the room, muttering with urban-wildlife paranoia.

Once I had the flue open, I aimed the flashlight, and found myself looking at a raccoon’s butt.

“Yep,” I said. “You’ve got a critter.”

“What?” says my girlfriend’s father. “What is it?”

“Looks like a raccoon. Could be a porcupine, I guess, though I think it’s unlikely.”

Her father stood up. “I could get my .22.”

“No!” said my girlfriend.

Her mother was equally opposed. “You’re not shooting that thing here!”

“Well,” said her father, “what if we smoke him out? Or send ammonia fumes up the chimney?”

“Why don’t you just leave it be?” said her mother.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said. “It’s spring, and it’s probably looking for a safe place to have its babies.”

After a few minutes of brainstorming, I looked again, and the critter was gone.

The story is most interesting for the range of reactions: I thought the animal visit was abstractly interesting, my girlfriend was frightened, her mother thought it was cute, and her father took it as an opportunity to kill something. :slight_smile:

18

I was going to wonder if it had something to do with male raccoon vs. female raccoon as far as the stink, but all three wild raccoons at the rehab center smelled bad and one was female. I think the tame one that stayed with the barn cats was male. But he was also “litter trained”. He used to poop on woodchips in a particular corner of the barn which got shovelled them with the rest of the regular stall mucking.

Two of the wild raccoons were juveniles. The adult had one arm because he got some wire wrapped tight around his forearm and it got gangrenous. The rehab vet amputated and tidied up the stump, and he was staying at the rehab center until they could determine whether or not he could care for himself. He could still climb and get into stuff pretty well. He was a nasty cantankerous thing.

I helped clean out the fox pen (they had one temporary resident who was recovering from an injury, and a permanent resident that lost an eye and couldn’t hunt or take care of himself in the wild). The foxes smelled dirty and the pen was musty, but they didn’t stink like the raccoons.

The blinded fox had lived next to a develoment project. Bascially the neighborhood got built up around him and he got really used to people. Some little kid was hand feeding him and a parent got freaked out and threw a hammer at the fox, which is how he lost his eye.

19

I saw pigeons mating on the sidewalk as I walked back to the office from lunch.

20

Ah, nature!