Ologies with Alie Ward - Procyonology (RACCOONS) with Suzanne MacDonald

Episode Date: December 22, 2021

Tiny hands! Round rumps! Chaos! Compost! Delicious garbage and sweet faces make raccoons as mysterious as they are adored. World class raccoon expert, psychologist and animal behaviorist Dr. Suzanne MacDonald of Toronto’s York University explains tree sleeping, brain worms, cartoon raccoons, queer icons, whether you should keep one as a pet and also: some of the best career and life advice from midnight gremlins eating chicken bones in your driveway. Stay tuned for next week’s part 2 with half a dozen more raccoon experts. Follow Dr. Suzanne MacDonald on TwitterHer websiteA donation was made to Toronto Wildlife CentreMore episode resources & linksSponsors of OlogiesTranscripts & bleeped episodesBecome a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a monthOlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, totes, masks… Follow @ologies on Twitter and InstagramFollow @alieward on Twitter and InstagramSound editing by Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media & Steven Ray MorrisTranscripts by Emily White of The WordaryWebsite by Kelly R. Dwyer   

Oh hey. Hi. It's your neighbor who just needs a couple tips on how to start weight lifting real quick. Ally Ward, I'm back with an episode of oligies that honestly, I know what's up. You squealed when you saw it. I get it. You said, wow, the holiday times aren't gonna be magical. Someone did get me a present. There is joy to the world. Let's talk about eating garbage. Raccoons. Okay. Wow. So these critters, they have these tiny, alive doll hands and ample bedonks and they wear carnival cat burglar disguises. They got striped goth tails. What are they? Are they taking over the world? Why do we love them so much and what can we learn from them? A lot. Okay. And we're gonna do it via the world's most sought after raccoon expert who studied

zoology and genetics for undergrad and psychology for her masters at the University of Alberta. Kind of a rare combination. She now is a York University psychology professor and an animal behaviorist. She studied all manner of animals from the reproductive endocrinology of marmots, naturally, to rhino and elephant conservation, red wolf sperm, and anxiety in orphaned primates. But the world relies on her, frankly, as an animal behaviorist and a Toronto resident to field questions about that thing in your backyard, treating your koi pond like a sizzler. And she served as the on-call behaviorist at the Toronto Zoo for literal decades. And if there is a well-made documentary about raccoons, they have probably interviewed her first. Just Google

Raccoon Nation if you don't believe me. You're welcome. Also, thank you to patrons for supporting the show for as little as a dollar a month. You send in questions there. It's at patreon.com slash ologies. Thanks to everyone who passes episodes on to friends and foes and family and who subscribes and follows and rates and reviews. Those really keep it up in the chart so that people find it. I read your reviews, every single one of them, every week, and they are the singular pillar of my self-esteem, like this one from Emma Garsh, who wrote, the genius associate at Staples printed so many things for me and is studying to be a marine biologist at CU Boulder. Of course, she listens to ologies too. If you're reading this,

my dear Staples associate friend, hi, maybe I'll hear you on ologies one day. Signed Emma. Emma and future coral expert. Oh, hey, I love an office supply store, truly, and both of you. Okay, on to the ologist of the hour. Here we go. She's been to the top of my list for years, but I had this problem of like, what ology is this going to be? There's got to be one. There has to be one. People love raccoons. Someone had the Twitter handle raccoonologist, but then they went off to go study some birds. What about prosionologist from the genus of the common raccoon, prosion loader, which means before dog creature that washes stuff? By the way, raccoon comes from the indigenous Powhatan language, and it means the animal that scratches with

his hands. But the name for this, it's kind of still being debated, but we're going to air on the side of the drier science and also follow the lead of a Reddit post. I read about what to call a raccoon steadier. In this case, a very knowledgeable, super dry, strawberry blonde world adventurer and a thinker about thinking who indulged me in this delightful chat about compost bins, chaos, whether their bottoms are ample enough, tree sleeping, brain worms, the symphonic stylings of these loping muses, cartoon raccoons, bisexual icons, whether you should invite one to move into your condo and really some of the best career and life advice you could ever get from these backyard babies. So bungee cord yourself in tightly for a feast

of facts with psychologist, animal behavior scientist, professor, and prosionologist Dr. Suzanne McDonald. I'm Dr. Suzanne McDonald, she, her. I've been so excited. I've been wanting to do this episode for years. People have been begging for an episode about raccoons. I know, would it be, do you think in terms of allergies, would it be raccoonology or would it be? No. No, okay. No, that's ridiculous. No, it's just that we study animal behavior and raccoons are just a species that we study. Well, to borrow an expression from your grandmother, whoop, there it is. So the reigning North American expert on raccoon says, it's not raccoonology, but oh, holiday bonus,

next week I'm going to be dishing up a not raccoonology part two in which we talk to more experts who study these little ringtailed gremlins. And I asked them, I was like, what should I call this episode? So a few ideas for an allergies episode on raccoons could be raccoonology, or maybe prosionidology, or even bandidology, prosionology, raccoonology, raccoonology, prosionidology, prosionology makes the most sense, crafty buggerology would be more, more fitting. So whether you're on team raccoonology or a prosionology, perhaps crafty buggerology, one thing upon which society at large can all agree is that a group of raccoons is called a nursery. Oh wait, no, shoot. It's also called a gaze. Okay, well, either either. So how did icon

and wildlife biologist Dr. McDonald get so lucky to have a job gazing at gazes? How did you come to study raccoons? How did you end up in this field? Well, I've been studying animal behavior for 30 years. So I work with many, many other species most of the time. So I work with orangutans and polar bears and monkeys and elephants and hyenas and Kenya. And I work with many, many species, and the only one anyone ever wants to talk about is raccoons. But that's fine. I started working with them about 10 years ago when I was actually interviewed for a TV show. And they said, we can't find anyone who studies raccoons. Could you, because I study animal behavior, could you, you know, tell us about raccoons? And I said, sure, but nobody really knows very much. And

that's how I started doing research with them. Lucky. Why do you think there is such a fascination with their behavior? Well, I think there wasn't always a fascination with their behavior. So I do think that now that it's they're more common in cities and people are seeing them in their backyard, especially during the pandemic, I think that people just really, really find them fascinating because they I think they kind of I've had people say they're like my spirit animal. It's like, okay, well, I really hate that phrase. That seems like a terrible phrase. But I think the idea is that people really identify with them because they're kind of mischievous and cute. And they hang around and they eat a lot. And, you know, honestly, if they could, they live in your house on the

couch with the remote. And they kind of have a lot of human-like behaviors. And so I think those characteristics make them appealing. And they're darn cute. I mean, how could you not love them? Yeah, they are very adorable. Was there something about animal behavior that always fascinated you growing up? Or what had you steer your career toward the science? Well, I'm very interested in conservation and the environment and have been since I was a child. So I started a club when I was nine on conservation and animal behavior. So I don't actually remember any time when I wasn't interested in that. I think a lot of kids are interested in animals and animal behavior. And I talked to a lot of kids and they're all super well informed and wonderful.

And then they tend to lose it when they get a little bit older and get interested in something else. But I guess I maintained that. I probably never grew up, I guess, and I'm just interested in animal behavior. But if we don't learn how to coexist with other species, we're just one puny little species on the face of the earth after all, and probably two million others, then we'll all be in big trouble. So it seems to be more important now and ever. Do you ever see a lot of similarities in the groups of animals that you work with? Or why do you study the ones that you study particularly? Well, there's always a project in mind. So there's a reason to do that. I'm interested in how animals think. And so I work with primates because

other primates like us, our cousins think similarly to us, but also have enough interesting differences that we can learn quite a bit about how brains work, which is my primary interest as a psychologist. As a biologist, I'm very interested in how we mitigate human wildlife conflict and how we can learn to live with other species without exterminating the other species, which seems to be our go to as a human. I'm part biologist and part psychologist. So some of my projects are about how animals think and some of my projects are about how do we all get along. And I suppose when it comes to the animal and human interaction, there's no place like a big city crawling with raccoons to really study that, I imagine, right? It's absolutely amazing. Yeah,

you know, like I get on a plane and fly 30 hours to my field site in Kenya or I can just go in the backyard. So it was quite a revelation to me like, Oh, well, this is this is good. So yeah, I have raccoons in the backyard and I can test out all my stuff with them on my deck. And they're very willing participants, I can tell you that two of them are going to show up in about 20 minutes and be knocking at the door, because that's what they do every night. So yeah, it's pretty great. There are so many raccoons in in the Greater Toronto area. And never any problem getting participants for my studies. That's for sure. Can you tell me a little bit about the studies that you're doing now when you say that you've got some equipment set up or some some studies set up in

your backyard? Can you walk me through what that looks like? Sure, it depends again on the project. So I have done some things looking at how raccoons problem solve. So can they open up garbage cans, for example, like how do they do it? If they're urban animals, are they different than ones that live in the country? Yes, they are. So my my big plan is looking at are the urban raccoons differentiating from the rural raccoons. So are they becoming a new subspecies or species based on their interactions with us? This is a question that really interests me about how humans actually cause evolution, that we are the ones that are driving the changes on the planet. And so looking at how raccoon behavior changes and how their little brains change is really interesting

to me. So I can ask them to solve problems and see how they do that. I've also done some really practical stuff testing garbage can't garbage bins, you call them trash bins, I think in the U.S. for the City of Toronto. So testing out new organic waste bins, which we call green bins, they are actually green, and seeing whether they're raccoon resistant. Right now I'm looking at opossums in my backyard and raccoons and this is all just trying to get an idea of what's going on because nobody really studies these urban wildlife species. They're very difficult to study. I mean you can't bring them into a lab, which is psychologists love to bring animals into a lab. So we're going to cover more on what happens when prosynologists try to bring raccoons

into a lab next week in part two. But whoa, it's good. It's just it's premium mischief. So rub your tiny hands together for next Tuesday. But if you're still thinking about city raccoons versus their rural cousins, what are the differences? Does one tend to wear camouflage windbreakers? Is another snobbier about which pour over coffee they lap up off a bench? Well it turns out city raccoons have gotten craftier than their country counterparts because the raccoons that can figure out how to wrestle a locked green bin are rewarded with all kinds of compostable treasure from like eggplant peels and shrimp shells and delicious bones, apple cores. They're like, I came to the big city to make it. And by make it, I mean poop in your hammock. And Suzanne's

research revealed that rural raccoons, they just kind of shrug at compost bins. But city raccoons get to work immediately, no matter how expertly engineered they are. And apparently 80% of metro raccoons could crack a trash can like a pro, while none of the rural ones could. They were like, so the results? The rise and proliferation of smart city sunsabishes. Trash pandas? Think again. You're giving pandas too much credit. But how many urban raccoons are even out there? So Suzanne has counted up to 50 in one backyard, which is not a gaze. That's like a legit rager. If you don't want them there, well, you might have to just shut down their trendiest restaurants, such as your freshwater fountains or your bird feeders. And I read that advice and I was like,

they just eat bird seed gross. And then I realized that I was literally in the middle of a bowl of granola. Anyway, wildlife is studied in the wild, which might literally mean a backyard. And in Suzanne's case involves many, many nights of spying on these little living hop goblins or not. And I've also measured, this sounds a bit morbid, dead raccoons to see if how their size changes. It's a good way to measure animals if they're dead. So I didn't kill them. They were killed by traffic. Oh my God, it sounds like I'm a monster. No, they were already killed. And sadly had already passed away. So spent a couple years measuring dead raccoons. That's fun to explain to your friends. How did you feel about the very well-publicized raccoon funeral in Toronto a few years back?

Oh yeah, what was the name of the raccoon? I gotta look it up. It was a sea, like Curtis. It was hilarious. It was several years ago. I was actually in South Africa at the time, working with elephants. And somebody emailed me. The times are all odd, right? Because the time zone changes. And I got this email with this picture of a memorial for a raccoon. And I was like, what the hell is happening when I'm gone? Like, what is going on? Has the city lost its mind? I can't, I think it was, I can't remember what the name was. But anyway, yeah, I wasn't in the country. And so I thought, when you're removed from the country and you're removed from Toronto, it just seems pretty crazy. So I just laughed and thought it was pretty crazy. But

they were trying to draw attention to the fact that the poor little raccoon was not removed by the city. That was allowed to just sort of be there in the gutter. It was sad. Side note, his name was Conrad. Even the city's official social channels joined the bereavement, tweeting that Toronto residents are being asked to keep their green bins open tonight in honour of Conrad. Hashtag dead raccoon, Tio. Yeah, I hope my funeral is as well attended. Is that dead raccoon? Because what a life. Yeah, but it also tells you more about the people in Toronto than anything else. Oh my gosh. Canadians, the most polite type of human. Yes. It's just, it made me laugh. And of course, I had a bunch of students with me from the UK and they're all

like, what is, what is wrong with your country? Like what, what is going on there? Yeah, it was pretty funny. Yeah, I'm sorry for the raccoon. But we have many, many, many thousands of raccoons. So they're not endangered. It's okay. How long is a typical urban raccoon's lifespan? Oh, not very long. So raccoons in captivity, there are some raccoons in captivity. We have raccoons at the Toronto Zoo, who live a nice long life, probably 16 to 20 years. But wild raccoons are lucky if they make it three years. Three years versus 20. What is happening on those mean streets? Yeah, there's disease and there's traffic. Those are their two, there's their two nemesis, nemesis, nemesis. So, you know, they are a protected wildlife species. So they have no,

and they have no predators in the city other than traffic. It's their big predator and disease, because they're so, the densities are so high. If disease gets into the population, it spreads through pretty quickly. So that happens every few years, we get a big outbreak of canine distemper, which comes from dogs. And we lose a lot of raccoons that way. It's pretty sad, actually. Raccoons are of interest to the government because they are a vector for rabies. So they are monitored quite closely. We have no rabies in the greater Toronto area population, but there have been a few nearby. And those are followed very closely. So any species that is a rabies vector is also monitored. So you don't want to get too close to any of those species, that's for sure.

Yeah, are there any tips that biologists want the general public to know in terms of seeing a raccoon in the daytime or seeing a raccoon who's behaving differently? Yes, everybody says, I get these emails from just random humans saying, I saw a raccoon in the afternoon. It was rabid, right? I'm like, no, it was just out in the afternoon. They're not vampires, like they can come out in the sunlight. They don't explode, really. They're just out. They're just hanging. Usually it's females who are super hungry because they're nursing kids, or it's young ones, like the ones that are going to show up in a couple of minutes. Young ones who are, if they come out a little earlier, they get first crack at whatever foods

there. So they learn to come out a little earlier. They are not rabid just because they're out in the daytime, really. That's just silly. Flimflam busted. But what if they are sick? So Suzanne described some symptoms you can look out for, or rather, I guess, listen for. You know, if they are behaving strangely, vocalizing, they make these god-awful noises when they're sick, and seriously. Then when they have canine distemper, they howl and scream because they're in extreme pain, and there's nothing that can be done for them. So you have to call Toronto Animal Services or Animal Services, and they will come and euthanize them. So there's no cure for that, unfortunately.

So if you see a raccoon acting strangely, then, you know, stay away from it. Don't go towards it. Please do not take a selfie. Please do not do any of that. You can take a video from a distance and send it to your animal services in the US. There is rabies in the raccoon population in parts of the US, not all of the US, not in California. But, you know, back away. I think social distance is ideal with all raccoons. Just give them some space. Do not corner them. If you corner a mother with kids, then she will be mad just like you would be. And just give them some space and enjoy them and let them go on their way. And that's the best advice I have. But if they are acting strangely and do look to be in pain, then call Animal Services.

And obviously those vocalizations when they're in pain are heartbreaking and probably tough to hear. But do they have vocalizations when they're not in pain, when they're happy or communicating? Oh gosh. Dozens, yes. So they talk, they're very chatty. Raccoons, well, they have many noises. So the babies have noises to get their mothers to pay attention. They purr. People call them different. They don't purr like cats, but it's a similar kind of sound. They trail, they chirp, they do all sorts of things. When they're mating, they... I always get emails about this too. In January, February, here, it's cold. But we often have a day or two that has like, it's called a January thaw. So it's a little warmer than normal. And when I say warmer, it's above zero Celsius.

So I don't know whatever that is. 32 Fahrenheit. 32 Fahrenheit. So when it gets a little warmer, in January, they will come out and they'll mate. And so people email me all the time in January and they say, the raccoons are dying. No, they're actually mating. Yeah, they're on your fence and they're mating. And they make all sorts of terrible noises, screaming and yelling. And that's what they're doing. And then they go back to being, they don't hibernate, but they're less active in the winter. And then they go back to that. And then, you know, about 63 days later, the females will have their little babies. But yeah, every year in January. Oh my God, the raccoons are dying. Nope. Nope. That's just raccoon love. That's just how they sound.

Is that part of what you have to study too as a behaviorist? Do you study what those different noises mean? I don't. Not very many people have studied it. I mean, maybe one of my students can study it, but it is very, very difficult to study raccoons because you can't really follow them. We did a study where we put GPS tracking collars on raccoons. And even that, it's, well, once you get them on, it's very difficult to get them off because they become trap shy. They're smart little buggers. Crafty buggerology would be more fitting. And it's very difficult to follow even with collars on because a collar will tell you that they're in a backyard. They don't tell you where they are. So they can be on the roof,

in the attic, under the deck, in the house, anywhere, in a tree, in a bush. You never know. It's terrible. So yes, tricky to track, but it could be an interesting study for an enterprising prosionologist or a crafty buggerologist. There's a lot you can hear if you listen to a raccoon. They chat. They're very, very chatty all the time with the different sounds. And you start to get to know what they mean. And the baby sounds are the best. They're just sweet and, you know, trying to get their mom to give them some food. So I like those ones. The other ones always sound like they're being ripped to shreds. Like they're just really loud. If you hear raccoons fighting, you go, well, obviously, there's going to be dead raccoons in the morning.

There never are. They really just, wow, they're not shy. So you don't have a raccoon ringtone then? I do not know, because I'm not insane. So that's why. Where are they chilling during the day? Like, I know I have raccoons in the yard. I've found a raccoon latrine in my yard. I know. I know. And I understand that there are possibly roundworms and the raccoon latrine should be either disposed of or discouraged, which I guess you could do during the daytime. But in the daytime, are they asleep in a tree over my head? Yes, they are. So raccoons in what we found from the GPS study is that raccoons have about, I'm going to say 10, these are urban raccoons anyway, have about 10 densites that they have.

And those densites are up in trees or in bushes or under decks or wherever they have their spots. And it's sort of like wherever they are in the morning when the sun comes up. Again, they aren't vampires, but kind of like that. They find the closest one and they will sit there. And they don't use the same one all the time, which is why, you know, sometimes you'll go, oh, I had raccoons up in the tree yesterday, but today they're not there. I wonder where they are. Well, they're probably in the neighbor's tree because that's another site. So they move between those sites. So they may not come back to your tree for a couple of days, or they might be there for a while. It's whatever they decide to do, wherever they've found food.

So yeah, they're often up in the, like the crook of a tree, like where the trees branch out, and they, they sleep in there and they're really well camouflaged. So you, I mean, I know they're up there and I can't see them unless they lift their head and then you can see their little faces, but otherwise you can't see them at all. So they have to move or you're not going to see them. And I know mine, I think mine are in my backyard tree today and they'll come down to look to see what snacks are out pretty soon. So not always the same spot. I mean, this is obviously a very basic question and quite ignorant, but how do they not fall out of the tree when they're asleep? They have such big round butts.

They look, their butts look bigger than they are. So when they're actually flattened down, their butts are not as big. So I can tell you because I've measured many dead raccoons. So when they're dead, their butts are, their butts are not that big. It's because they're hunched over when you see them. And so their, their rears look giant, like, whoa, but they can actually squash, you know, kind of flatten their spines down and get, that's how they get into such small spaces. So you would look at a raccoon and say, well, that is not getting into a two inch opening in my garage door. Oh, yes, it is because they are going to flatten themselves down and slide right through. So they are a deceiving looking species. So when they're in the cork of a tree,

they, they hang like, I don't know if you've ever seen red pandas, but red pandas do the same thing. They kind of hang on a tree. And so they're pretty, their bulk of their body is in the tree and then they can let their, their head and their feet go over, but they try to keep their, their heads down so nobody can see them that and they just tuck it in their tail. Now I'm looking out at my trees wondering which ones got raccoons in them. Yeah. Well, you know, more than you think. So I've had a lot of people tell me, oh, yeah, I know you can come and put your cameras in my backyard, but you won't find any raccoons. And then I show them the video the next day and they go, Oh, I had new idea because they're in all the trees. So yep. All right,

just look, look, look, look, look, one, one raccoons. Well, that's how we confirmed that the latrine was a raccoon latrine. I mean, I, the first day that I surveyed the property and I thought, well, I've got to figure out which neighbor is pooping here and have a very awkward conversation. But I was like, but there's no toilet paper. Then I did some digging and on the internet, not in the dirt and realized that it probably raccoons. And so I put up a camera trap, sure enough raccoons using it as a potty, but I understand there is a little bit of a risk in certain regions of a roundworm parasites. So what do you do if you find a raccoon latrine on your roof or in your yard? Well, um, you should put on a mask and luckily we all have those now. So

that works out really well. I used to say that and people would be like a mask. Where do I get a mask? Well, I guarantee not a problem. Put on a mask and some gloves, get yourself a shovel, scoop that up, dispose of it in a bag, throw it away in a seal bag. And if you can put some bleach on the area just to kill whatever's left. This is just something I've learned. And it's, and I told one of my good friends to do this. And she's like, this sounds unlikely, Suzanne. And I'm like, no, try it. And she did. If you want them not to use a spot as a latrine, put some aluminum foil in that spot. They don't like aluminum foil. It sounds crazy, but they really don't like the feel of it on their feet. And so she had one a latrine on her roof and she had to hang out the window and

put the aluminum foil on her roof, but they never came back. Really? So they do not want to have a disco space potty party? They do not know. Just a quick roundworm aside, because I know we all want one. Brainworm parasites, aka balus scarus proscianus are tiny little monsters and you must destroy them. So there's this one CDC pamphlet that I read today. It earnestly recommended the kill it with fire technique. The pamphlet continued with this very breezy FAQ. It just said, should I flame the latrine site with a propane torch? And then calmly answered, most chemicals don't kill roundworm eggs that are not suitable for outdoor use. Extreme heat will kill eggs instantly. Break up and turn over contaminated soil several times, flaming each time. Flaming with the propane

torch is effective, but could cause a fire, burn injury or surface damage. And then it just says, you know, that's the fire department first, obviously. Now, obviously they have likes, they have dislikes, they have a certain language of their own. So when it comes to their cognition, how smart are they? Not as smart as people think they are. Ouch. Honestly, I started studying raccoons because I thought they would be like the monkeys of North America. So I study a lot of primates and we don't have monkeys in North America. So I thought, I wonder if raccoons fill that same niche and their little brains have developed to be like the monkeys of North America, because everyone's like, oh, they're geniuses. Yeah, the answer is no, they are not the monkeys of North

America. They are clever and endearing and lovely sometimes, but they are not the monkeys of North America. So they do have good memory. But when it comes to, I'll give you an example. So if I work with monkeys in Kenya, and they're called vervet monkeys, they're little adorable little monkeys, and little vervet monkeys will watch you and know when you turn your back, they will steal your stuff. That's what they do. Raccoons, they may watch you, but they don't wait for you to turn your back to steal your stuff because they don't understand that. They just see a thing and want the thing and get the thing. So there's no sort of plotting and scheming. It's just impulsivity and just going for it. And that's what raccoons do. It's a different kind of cognition, really. It's just a sort of

like destroy, break, grab, do whatever, fiddle with stuff until things break. That is what their go-to strategy is. So they're not sitting and pondering and thinking about how doors work or any of that stuff. They're just like, if I keep on pushing at it, it's going to open up. So that's what they do. They're little chaos goblins. They are, absolutely. So that's why they do so much damage because they're not sitting there thinking about the best way to get into your house. They're just like, oh, this looks loose. I think I'll just play with this for an hour, and then they rip your shingle off. So that's the raccoon way. So if you're wondering whether raccoons are all gathered somewhere in an underground lair plotting the destruction of order, well, according to Suzanne,

their cognition is such that they don't teach each other stuff, but they belong to the church of trial and error. So raccoons are called neophiles, meaning that they see something unfamiliar and they're down. They're just like, I'm into it. They're the friend that makes you go on the rollercoaster, the one that tries to do hot wings place, even though it's health code rating as a C. They're going to wear hair and pants and a crop top before everyone else, and they'll look good, but they will also smash your belongings until they eat them, and they'll invade ecosystems and shake you down for hot dogs until you're bleeding. And Jared made the point that given that they're endemic to North America, it's just a damn shame that the bald eagle is our national

bird here in America instead of the raccoon. I mean, what's more American than a growing divide between rural and metro lifestyles, some destructive avarice and looking cute from afar, but being kind of a hell child up close. But you still want to cut a one. I get it. So do I. But bad news. Suzanne says in Canada, you can't legally have a captive raccoon, although in the US, you can in certain states with a wild animal permit or a wildlife rehab license. Arkansas, calm down. You can only own five at a time. And really, perhaps the question isn't, can you cohabitate with a raccoon? But should you? I mean, it depends. Do you like anarchy? Now, what about folks in America who have domesticated them or purchased a domesticated one

or raised an orphan? What is a, for lack of a better term, an expert raccoonologist's opinion on that? It's a bad idea, but I do know that people love their raccoons. People love baby raccoons. And how could you not? Although they're bitey little things, I gotta say. They're super cute. But baby raccoons within a few months turn into adult raccoons who are super bitey and super destructive and quite as cute as they used to be. So, you know, they're wild animals. They belong in the wild, not in your house, in my opinion. But if somebody already has one, then, you know, I'm happy that people send me photos and they're adorable. And these are some very well loved raccoons, but it's obviously not their natural habitat. So, as a Canadian, I have to say,

please leave the wild animals in the wild. But I know that Americans have a different view. Right. Although we have so many wonderful dogs and cats that are just waiting to live in your house. And need a home. Yes. Maybe if more dogs had mask markings, you know, get a sharpie, draw that on, whatever it takes. And I do understand if there's an orphan and you rescue it and you raise it, but, you know, release it because that's, and they can live in your backyard and come back and you'll find that they won't. But where are they going to go? Well, according to Suzanne, world raccoon expert, they need their space and not just from her. So each raccoon has a home range of about 80 to 200 acres with due raccoons strutting even further out. And obviously,

like a city block or a rural road, the population density varies. But on average, every raccoon prefers to nap and eat garbage and worms on its own kind of 10 acre estate. So when it comes to your house, you're failing to impress a raccoon. I don't get it because that's just not what we would do. But it is the same to me as seeing a tiger in a one bedroom apartment in New York, which, you know, does happen too. Not a good idea. So all the animals are very sweet when they're little, but they all grow up and that's a bad idea. Can I ask you some questions from listeners who wrote in? Sure. So excited. Over 300 questions were submitted for you. Oh, God, and heaven.

I know. People are excited. Don't worry, we will not ask you all of them. Although people would listen. People are so thrilled about raccoons. I mean, you didn't think raccoons is going to be a single episode. Hell no. But before we even attempt to crack into questions, every week we scatter money like oily chicken bones on asphalt to a deserving cause. And this week, Dr. Suzanne McDonald chose Toronto Wildlife Center. And I could tell you what they do, but instead like a creep, I went and found a published letter from 2019 in which Dr. McDonald wrote, over the past 10 years, it's been increasingly obvious that the work that the Toronto Wildlife Center does to rescue, care and treat injured sick and orphaned wildlife is an essential service

for the area. I personally received dozens of emails and calls from residents throughout the summer months asking for help with injured or orphaned raccoons and I always send them to the TWC. Natalie Carvenin and the TWC do an extraordinary job of helping many thousands of animals and dealing with many thousands of residents. The numbers are staggering and only increasing as humans continue to encroach on wildlife habitat. We desperately need the TWC in this city. So much applause and many kudos and donations went to them. More info is available at torontowildlifecenter.com and center is spelled center because Canada. So that donation was made possible by sponsors of the show who you'll probably hear about now.

Okay, this first question comes via patrons, Annika, Julie, April, Ethan, Batone, Haley, Squire, Jenna, A, Austin, Santiago, and Allison Hatz, as well as Elizabeth, age eight, sorry Lauren, for the swears in this, who needed to know about their bandit core aesthetic. A lot of people wanted to know how their mask and striped markings, how their markings evolved. Why are they wearing accessories? Well, nobody really knows. So that's the answer is whenever you ask a question, but why did, you know, why do elephants have trunks? Why do we then, we just do. The function of it is disputed. Some people think it is a species identification tool so that raccoons can tell other raccoons by the way they look. It seems an odd location for that, but, you know, in the mask

and the face, but some people think because they work at night, it's kind of like, you know, like football players put black goop under their eyes to cut down reflection, apparently. I'm not a big football player person. And so the idea is that does it as well. So it will maximize the available light. Their vision isn't super great at night. And so anything they can get to help them with that is good. So it probably does serve that function. I don't know if that's why it evolved. But there are raccoons without masks. So it is a trait that varies across the subspecies of raccoons. You know, the color of the raccoon does vary across North America. And the darkness of the mask does vary as well. So it does make sense that it would be a species identification thing in that case that,

you know, a little female raccoon would say, oh, that one looks just like me, really dark eyes, or no mask at all. So that's how it could evolve, for sure. Aha. Okay. That's good to know. Listener Zoltan Zazi says, my question about trash bandas is, did they evolve to instinctively sniff out the best opportunities to do crime? Essentially, a ton of people use the term trash bandas. I'm curious how you feel about the term. So yes, patrons, who called them trash bandas? Looking at you, RJ Deutsch, Anna Duweiger, Joe Mueller, Josh Beatty, Katelyn Schmowes, first time question asker, Ashley Dent, Spencer Hart, Sidney Bowers, Alec Grundman, Gary Youngling, Susie Kroger, Emily Lance, Liz S, Jade Pollard, Joy Kid, Margot Fray, Paige McLaughlin, Lizzie

Martinez, Joy Colthimer, and Dr. Tegan Wall, who's so scared of raccoons, she couldn't even submit a question. And don't worry, I'm not going to call you out publicly, though. Oops. Also, second part, Smell, first time question asker, the other, other Amy, Bobby Minard, and yes, Zoltan Zazi, who asked about sniffing out opportunities to do crime. And patron, Rebecca Schoen, killed, asked, do they really gang up on people or did those seven raccoons just chase my cousin home because her waitress uniform smelled like pie? Lot to process here. And do they have a nose for garbage? Well, I actually think the term is really great, and I use it too sometimes, although if the pandas are so, you know, I'm a biologist, I'm

like, well, they're not actually pandas. You know, I, I'm always a little bit too picky that way. But yeah, it's a cute term. So I have no problem with that. They didn't evolve the nose for garbage, but they do have a good nose. So just like your dog has a really good nose. So raccoon noses and dog noses are pretty, pretty darn good. It just so happens to serve them really well in the city, sniffing out garbage. And it's not their nose so much as they can tell there's food in a place just like your dog and your cat can, just like we can, to some extent. But, you know, raccoons have the added advantage of having those little hands so they can actually get into the garbage. Your dog can smell that there's something in the garbage can, but can't get into

the garbage can, but the raccoons can. And so the raccoons aren't plotting saying it looks like you have to twist it to the left before you lift it to the right. They're really just like approaching it with fingers and chaos. Yes, absolutely. Let's see what we have to do. They bang on it. They knock it. Usually the go to is knock it over, roll it around a bit. Yeah, no, I've got over 800 hours of video of raccoons attacking garbage cans. And that's what they all do. So there's no genius raccoon out there. They're just all just bashing it. And any raccoon that's been able to figure out these raccoon resistant bins in Toronto has just broken into them. There have been viral videos showing raccoons opening the mechanism on these bins, but the mechanisms

are broken. So that's not really fair, is it? So they just, they break stuff. That's what they do. So just let this be less than everyone. Just try and fail a bunch until everyone assumes you're a genius. I got to hand it to them. Or do I have to pot to them? Y'all wanted to know, in Abby Jo's words, what's with the fingies? And also, of course, why do they wash things with them? Actually, raccoons evolved, they're called a riverine species. So cleverly that means they evolved around rivers. So they evolved to kind of catch their food at the edges of rivers. And that's why they put food in the water all the time. So their Latin name is washing, actually washing rat, but washing bear. Lots of people call them that. So their hands evolved

in a very special way in that they have much more sensitive abilities to detect what an object is through their fingers, through their hands, than through their eyes. So they see with their hands, they feel things and that translates into what the object is. So it's very difficult for humans to imagine this. But if you think of a dolphin using sonar, that's also difficult for us to imagine. They send out sonar and they get a picture of what's ahead of them. Raccoons use their hands and they get a picture in their head of what they're feeling. So they can do that underwater. So if you give raccoons food and there's water nearby and the food is really hard, they often put it in the water. They will put everything in the water eventually, but they

like searching for food in water. So I did a little test with a bunch of hot dog pieces and a bunch of rocks. They're all the same size and just timed how long it would take them to pull the hot dogs out from the rocks that are all submerged underwater. It takes them like five seconds. They're super, super fast at that. If there was some sort of skill testing game that they could play to do that, they would win over every other species. They're really, really good at that. So they work at night. They need to rely on things other than supervision. And what they do is they rely on super sense of touch. So they're not washing as most of us grew up thinking? No, they're not washing the thing. They may be softening the thing. It may make it more palatable,

but they are, if you watch released raccoons that have been, that were orphaned, that were hand reared and then released to the wild. And I was lucky enough to go the day that we release them out. And the first thing they do is they go down to a river and they all put their hands in the water. Yeah, it's really amazing. These are raccoons that have never done that before ever. And that's the first thing they all do. So it is a very innate thing. It's an innate behavior that they do that. And they catch crayfish or crawfish, I don't know how you say it, and insects and fish and all sorts of things right by the edge of the water. So in the wild, that's what they do in downtown Toronto. They go in our little backyard ponds. They go in our swimming pools. They go

in wherever they can find a source of water because that's what they are born to do. Okay, so with around three quarters of the sensory part of the brain dedicated to their tactile business, that is what raccoons are doing with their cute, soft, tiny, creepy, begging, adorable hands, which I'm really sorry to have to hand deliver this news. They're actually paws. They're not even hands. Most folks who call the shots on these kind of matters say, you got to have an opposable thumb to count as hands or a little garbage monger stone. So the next time you watch one upscond with half of your burrito, just check it out. You'll see that it's prayer hand emoji-ing your lunch instead of gorilla gripping it, if you will. So there are your thumb answers,

Katie Winchester, Diney Desjourney, and Jessica Roth, who had asked, any hope of a texting raccoon one day? They don't need thumbs to text. I wouldn't put it past them, and they'll probably figure out TikTok before me. But yes, raccoons evolve to live near water, just bellied up to the river buffet. Their ancestors and their pastoral relatives are just out there snacking on grubs and all kinds of aquatic critters, which is why when they go to dunk a cotton candy treat in water to figure out what the hell this pink cloud is, it causes them to have an existential breakdown. Liora and Emily Fitzpatrick, who asked about those videos of mystified raccoons, I'm assuming you asked because it made a mark on my soul as well.

Just the fear of hope, the mistrust of happiness, safety evaporated, slipping through our unthumbs. But let's talk about lies. So patron Jesse asked, is it true that they will eat slugs, but first they roll them in the dirt to make them less slimy? Please, I'm dying to know if this is flimflim or not. Jesse wrote, Jesse, raccoons don't have time to meal. Never mind, it's actually true. I fact checked it. Yes, yes, they use their non-hands to whip up dirt in crusted slug cakes. But I wonder, are they any good? Well, Christie Zimmer-Coiles wrote in and said, my five-year-old would like to know, what is a raccoon's favorite food? Do you have them fill out surveys, menus? No, but they do tell you by what they eat. So I have tested a lot of foods.

They do enjoy a nice cat food. I'll tell you that. They enjoy a nice can of cat food, wet cat food. They enjoy that very much. In fact, it's easier to say what they don't enjoy than what they do enjoy, but they do very much enjoy KFC. They do very much enjoy pizza. They pick the tomatoes and the onions off because they don't like onions. They do enjoy tacos. Indian food is a great favorite. They do enjoy sweets, but not as much. They like nuts and things. It's like a Snickers bar over a Mars bar because the Snickers has the nuts. So they will always go for the higher calorie. They very much enjoy McDonald's hamburgers and get enough of those. Anything that you would enjoy and they will enjoy as well. But onions? No, not a big fan. Oh, good to know. Should anyone be

feeding them or is it? No, that's generally a bad idea. Bad idea. Unless you want to have them come every night, which is what mine are doing right now. Here! Oh my god, they're ripping my coat and everything. Here, talking about over and around with raccoons. Yeah, you will have raccoons coming every night and when you stop feeding them, they get quite angry about it. So they expect some damage on your property because they will start trying to get your attention by ripping, weather stripping off and whatever you got, they'll do some damage. So I would not recommend that feisty. In Toronto, when it's super, super cold, the raccoons are, again, not hibernating, but they are much less active. But if they do come out and the weather, the winter is very, very long,

I say to people, yeah, sure, put out some calf food for them just to keep them from starving to death. Helen Langell, first time question asker, said a friend of mine told me that most raccoons are functionally bisexual. Is that true? How was your friend? How would that person know that? Oh my god, the questions I have, I just, I don't know. Functionally bisexual? No. No, okay. No, not well, you know, maybe, maybe they're watching different raccoons, but no, I've not, I've not seen that. I'm not sure what behavior they're referring to. Males do wrestle, same sex, there's wrestling, but I think that's a bit of a projection to call that bisexuality. I'm not quite sure what they're referring to, but if they have video, I would love to see it. Yeah, get in touch, of course.

And by the by, I went down Spreel raccoon tubes looking for the literature on this, and it's credited to the seminal 1999 McMillan release, biological exuberance, animal homosexuality and natural diversity written by Canadian biologist Bruce Bagemel, who listed raccoons among wild animals who engage in non heterosexual and non reproductive physical sexual affection, if you will. And this book is legit. It's often cited by anthropologists and biologists. And if you listen to the neuroendocrinology episode on sex and gender and biology with Dr. Daniel Fow, this is a reference book that they often cite. And the author Bruce Bagemel even is credited with helping reverse some homophobic sodomy laws in the US. But culturally, in an extremely online

way, I asked around about this connection between being bi and being a raccoon. And it seems that the general consensus is kind of a self deprecatingly ironic, identifying with overlooked trash animals who persevere despite being perceived as messy, but also hella cute. So all those in favor, say bye. Also, if you see any queer raccoons, get at Dr. McDonald on Twitter at twitter.com slash York Psyche. And her avatar is very easily recognizable. It's a photo of her head being scaled by a raccoon, which I assumed she was okay with, unlike when they find her garbage. Liz Davis and a bunch of other people want to know how do we keep the little bandits out of the trash? Do you cover your trash in foil? What do you do?

Yeah, it's really hard. I keep mine in a locked garage. And trust me, I have been through a lot of this. So I sympathize. So I keep my bins in a locked garage and I cover, you know, bungee cords. I use them. And if they get into your garage, though, then they'll figure it out eventually. But that's the only thing. We have to be smarter than they are. We just have to keep it out of their way. If you put them at the, you know, in the driveway at the curb, the raccoons will get into them. They will, they have a lot of time on their hands. The urban raccoons have our fat, and they have nothing else to do. They will spend, I've seen a female spend all night trying to get into a trash can. She has nothing else to do. The ones in the wild are on the edge of starvation.

They don't have time for this. But the ones in the city, they have all the time in the world. And they will work at it. So just keep your bins away from them. And everything will be fine. I put my garbage bins out in the morning that the trash gets removed. I don't put them out the night before because I'm tired of picking up stuff off the street. And all my neighbors are like, they even hit you and you're the one who knows about them. I'm like, yeah, well, yeah, you may know, but all you know is they're going to get into it. If you leave it, it's like, it's an invitation to a buffet. Why wouldn't they? Why wouldn't they get into it? It doesn't matter if you're Canada's queen of raccoons. You're still vulnerable.

Oh, really, that's very sad. Yeah. No, everyone is vulnerable. So just be smarter. Use your giant cortex and keep your bins under lock and key until you have to put them out. If you just leave them there, you're just training them to get into them. So the more time you give them to figure it out, the more they will figure it out. So don't make it easy for them. Any representations of raccoons in books, in movies, in TV, Guardians of Galaxy, anything that gets it right or really wrong? Well, actually, I thought Guardians of the Galaxy was fantastic. And I really, I love Rocket. Question. What if I see something that I want to take in if it belongs to someone else?

You will be arrested. But what if I wanted more than the person who has it? And I had, you know, I was a little bit skeptical before I saw it, but he is 100% for himself. I know he has a group and all that, but he, you know, he would leave his team members in heartbeat if it was to save himself. That's absolutely true. Raccoons would do that without hesitation. I think it's the cartoons that makes them seem all cuddly and funny and whatever that that's the reason raccoons have been exported around the world, which is a very, very bad idea. And now they are an invasive species in other countries because there have been cartoons that have shown that these raccoons are adorable and clearly not even an actual animal. And so people

get them and go, oh, wait a minute, this thing bit me and is destroying my house. And now I have to let it go outside. So people decide, I'm just going to quietly release this Harry tornado. Nothing to see here. And now those little robbers of hearts have made their way to Europe and Japan to eat slugs and look for sidewalk curry. And also the males use their penis bones. That's right. Count Bakula strikes again to get it on so loudly. And Lady raccoons have sometimes up to five babies at a time. So many babies. And then that's just a disaster. So raccoons have the potential with climate change to actually take over much of the planet. They will eat every native species that exists. No one has defenses against them. And it is a very bad idea. So I think those

depictions of raccoons and cartoons as being super cute and lovely, maybe cute for kids, but it gives people the wrong idea of what a raccoon is actually like. I always ask people, it's like, have you ever met one? Because if you think you want to go to a raccoon cafe, which I've actually opened in South Korea, then you've clearly never met a raccoon. Because that seems like a terrible idea to me. They're mighty. They scratch. I can't unimagine. Go to a cat cafe. Cats are lovely. You can just imagine them strolling by and dipping someone else's croissant into your tea. Absolutely. And then throwing. Like, honestly, it's just, I like them very much, obviously, but I do not have misconceptions.

And those misconceptions do come from those media depictions. To get back to your question is like, yeah, the cartoons are difficult. And you know, there's all those videos on YouTube and TikTok of raccoons doing cute things. And they are indeed cute, but it's never really ending very well for the raccoon. You know, some people are super devoted to their raccoon, and they do take a lot of time because they will be very destructive. Is that your least favorite thing about being a raccoon studier or a piconologist, pisonologist? Well, we'll figure that out in post, but is there what would you say? I always ask this at the very end. What would you say is the worst thing about raccoons or the thing that is hardest about your job? Oh, my job is not hard at all.

Honestly, I get to study animals, and it's fantastic. So there's nothing that's hard. Anything that's hard is because I've made a horrible mistake. And it's usually, it is always my mistake, whether I'm working with elephants or raccoons or whatever it is, it's always something dumb that I've done. So the animals themselves never are difficult. You just have to know, you have to start to think like them and appreciate what they do and how they view the world. And so that's what I try to do. And I always regret it when I don't do that. So I try to, I see them as a human, what a human would do. I misjudge that way. So I would say they never do anything to make my job hard. I make my own job hard. They're lovely. Honestly, they're just

a lovely little species. They're not trying to hurt anybody. They're just trying to get by. They're doing their job. They work at night. They're trying to be quiet. They're raccoons. You know, we just have to learn a little bit more about how to, how to work with them, that's opposed to against them. What is your favorite thing about what you do or about raccoons? Okay, well, all about raccoons. Honestly, I just love watching them. I was just watching them last night actually playing. It just pleases me so much to watch them play, even though they're on my deck playing in my patio furniture and ripping it to shreds. But still, they're so cute and they are just so, I don't know, so in the moment. And they just have such fun until it all devolves and they

start screaming. But there is a moment there where it's just so wonderful and pure and lovely. And that makes everything, that makes me happy. Or watching them trying to figure out a task that really pleases me. Any species I love watching animals trying to figure something out and then achieving what they want. I just love that. I just love it when they get a thing that they've tried for it. Pleases me. Humans too. So I just, I love that. So it's a great privilege to be able to watch all these animals do their things. And I can't imagine a better job. How interesting too to be an animal trying to figure out how animals are figuring things out. Yeah. And I always tell my students that it's like, raccoons are not sitting around trying to figure

out how do we work. We're the only species that actually have a job devoted to figuring out how other species think and how they work. That is amazing. Like human brains are amazing. Just think about it for a minute. Incredible. But yes, other species, you know, they do watch us and they do get our routines down. So I kind of like that too. And I realize that they understand that if they come at 5pm, I will be home. And they can get some snacks. So that pleases me too that we kind of have a mutual understanding that pleases me. Thank you so much for disseminating such important and beloved raccoon information. It's my pleasure. And I will tell you, if you want to keep raccoons away, just cut an onion in half and rub it on whatever you

don't want them to go here. It does work and it's cheap. So they sell all these products on the internet. But all I do is just use onions from the fridge and just put them on whatever. It does keep them away. Hot tip. That's amazing. So there you go. Ask crafty people chaotic questions because now you know that you don't have to be perfect or even the smartest. You just have to keep banging away at things and be hungry for discovery. Maybe there's a chicken on the other side. Also, raccoons are kind of a look, but maybe don't touch kind of friend. Just get a cat. And follow Dr. McDonald at York Psyche on Twitter. Her website is linked on the show notes. We're at oligies on Twitter and Instagram. I'm at alleyward with 1L on both at TikTok.

I'm at alley underscore oligies, where I'm posting badly. And more links will be up at alleyward.com slash oligies slash prosyanology. And another episode coming your way with more raccoon experts and their favorite things about raccoons next week. And thank you, Aaron Talbert, who admins the oligies podcast Facebook group. Shannon and Bonnie from Merch Help. Transcripts are by Emily White of the Wordery. Caleb Patton bleeps episodes and free transcripts and bleep episodes are up at alleyward.com slash oligies extras. Scheduling and business help by Noel Dilworth and Susan Hales, Zeke Rodriguez, Thomas and Stephen Ray Morris edit the small oligies episodes that come out every two weeks. Those are bite-sized and classroom safe. Jared

Sleeper is the lead editor and is up at all hours helping me work on this. Currently, it's 3.04 in the morning. Nick Thorburn wrote and performed the theme music. And if you listen to the end, you hear a secret. And this week, the secret is a big oligies milestone is right around the corner. And I'm not sure how to celebrate it. But next month, it looks like we are going to turn over the odometer to 69,420,666 lessons. It's going to happen in January, it looks like. So I don't know which one of you is going to be hitting play on that, but it's going to be special. Anyway, um, happy holidays. More raccoons next week. Okay, goodbye. Hey, all right. Little King Treshman found himself a piece of pizza.