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More on Raccoons
What am I?
I am a medium-sized mammal native to North America. I am the largest of the procyonid family, having a body length of 16 to 28 inches and a body weight of 8 to 20 lb. I have a grayish coat mostly consists of dense underfur which insulates me against cold weather. Two of my most distinctive features are my extremely dexterous front paws and my facial mask, which are themes in the mythologies of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. We are noted for our intelligence, with studies showing that we are able to remember the solution to tasks for up to three years. Our diet of the omnivorous raccoon, which is usually nocturnal, consists of about 40% invertebrates, 33% plant foods, and 27% vertebrates.
Where do we like to live?
Well for starters we would like to live in nature but due to our unique adaptability skills, we have been able to use urban areas as our habitat. The first sightings of us recorded in a suburb of Cincinnati in the 1920s. Since the 1950s, we have been present in metropolitan areas like Washington, DC, Chicago, and Toronto. Since the 2010s, a nuisance population of our kind has been present in Dallas TX. Since the 1960s, Kassel has hosted Europe's first and densest population in a large urban area, with about 130 to 390 animals per square mile, a figure comparable to those of urban habitats in North America. Home range sizes for us are only 7.5 to 100 acres for females and 20 to 200 acres for males. In small towns and suburbs, many us sleep in a nearby forest after foraging in the settlement area. Fruit and insects in gardens and leftovers in municipal waste are easily available food sources us. Furthermore, a large number of additional sleeping areas exist in these areas, such as hollows in old garden trees, cottages, garages, abandoned houses, and attics. The percentage of us sleeping in abandoned or occupied houses varies from 15% in Washington, DC (1991) to 43% in Kassel (2003) and I'm certain that our population is around the same in Dallas.
Can we live in your Attic? Please!
Some of the most important bacterial diseases which affect us are leptospirosis, listeriosis, tetanus, and tularemia. Although internal parasites weaken our immune systems, when we are well-fed we can carry a great deal of roundworms in our digestive tracts without showing symptoms. The larvae of the roundworm Baylisascaris procyonis, which can be contained in our feces and can cause illness in humans, it can be ingested when raccoon latrines are left untreated in Attics or crawl spaces. I guess now I know why I can't live with you.
Topper's Wildlife Removal offers dead animal removal in Dallas and dead animal removal in Fort Worth as well as Raccoon Removal and Raccoon trapping in Dallas/Ft Worth area.