Common raccoon

Raccoons eat almost anything.

They eat fruit, nuts, bugs, crayfish, frogs and eggs. In towns some even look in trash cans for food!

Raccoons are omnivores that will eat nearly anything they find. In some places they eat more plants than animals: wild grapes, cherries, berries, acorns and other nuts, and in farm country, lots of corn. They also catch crayfish, insects, frogs, fish and mice, and eat bird eggs.

In towns, raccoons are famous for raiding garbage cans and pet food. Their clever paws can even pull the lids off bins. That is why people near raccoons use tight-fitting lids and never leave pet food outside.

The raccoon is an opportunistic omnivore. In some habitats plant foods dominate, including wild grapes, cherries, apples, persimmons, berries and acorns, with corn the most important item in some agricultural areas. It eats more invertebrates than vertebrates: crayfish and insects, along with rodents, frogs, fish and bird eggs.

In suburbs and cities raccoons readily use garbage, pet food and roadkill, and they travel in straight lines between dens and rich food patches. Their habit of handling food with the forepaws before eating is linked to the paws' sensitivity. On farms they can damage orchards, vineyards, melon patches and corn.

Raccoons sleep in the day and come out at night.

They mostly live alone. In very cold weather they sleep a lot, but they do not hibernate.

Raccoons are nocturnal: they rest in a den during the day, which keeps them safe from many predators, and come out at night to look for food. Most raccoons live alone, apart from mothers with their young.

In very cold, snowy weather, raccoons may sleep for long stretches in their dens, living on their stored fat. This is not true hibernation, because their body temperature stays the same. They can lose up to half their body weight over a hard winter.

Raccoons are nocturnal and largely solitary; the only lasting social unit is a mother and her young, though males sometimes associate with a female around breeding. Home ranges are typically 1 to 3 kilometers across, and up to 10 kilometers in the West, and in one Virginia study residents traveled 0.75 to 2.5 kilometers a night.

During severe cold they may sleep for long periods but do not hibernate: metabolic rate and body temperature stay constant while they draw on fat reserves, losing up to about half their body mass. Resting in dens by day helps them avoid predators such as coyotes, wolves, large hawks and owls.

There are lots and lots of raccoons.

They are good at living near people. Raccoons are wild, so we watch them from far away and never feed them.

Raccoons are not in danger. They are listed as Least Concern, and their numbers are growing, partly because they are so good at living near people.

But living close to people causes problems. Raccoons can raid crops and trash, and they can carry diseases, including rabies, that can spread to pets and people. In Europe and Japan, where people brought them, they are an introduced species, living wild in places where they do not belong naturally. The best rule is to enjoy raccoons from a distance and never feed them.

The IUCN lists Procyon lotor as Least Concern with an increasing population (2015). Animal Diversity Web reports that raccoon numbers have grown since the turn of the twentieth century, helped by their ability to adapt to human-dominated landscapes, although some small island populations may be threatened.

Conflicts with people include crop damage, garbage raiding and disease: raccoons can carry rabies and other diseases and parasites transmissible to people and domestic animals. Outside the native range, people have introduced raccoons to many countries of Europe and Asia and to Japan, where they now live wild. Secure bins and no feeding reduce conflict where people and raccoons live side by side.