Raccoons and Their Impact on Nature

Hoh Lee
1월 22일
3분 분량

Blog post by: Soyoung Park

When night falls, raccoons sneak a peek at the quiet neighborhood and leap over fences, hoping to find a meal. This is a stereotypical image of what a raccoon might be doing as we sleep through the night. But, is that really all they do for nature? Often, raccoons are misunderstood as nuisances or scavengers. However, many people would be surprised to learn about the many great things raccoons have done towards our ecosystem. By looking at their dietary preferences, environmental cleaning habits, and their overall significance can help one understand the importance of their role to the planet.

Raccoons eat a variety of foods, especially from nature. This includes fruits, nuts, vegetables, corn, insects, berries, and small animals (such as mice, frogs, and fish). But did you know that their dietary preferences actually benefit living things? One interesting way they do this is by dispersing the seeds. For example, as they eat fruit and vegetables, they spread the seeds through their droppings, allowing the seeds to land in different places and grow from there. The plants that grew from the raccoon’s droppings support animals and insects, and in addition, they keep nature balanced. This process is also known as endozoochory. Sadly, human activities disrupt this process. Humans turned this natural process into such things as roads, which are preventing this natural system from happening.

In addition to their diet benefiting us, raccoons are actually lowering the chances for us from getting ill. They enjoy eating carrion, also known as dead animals, as their meal. Carrion can easily spread diseases but when raccoons clean it for people, it can help prevent the situation from getting more serious. Raccoons are actually predators of many different kinds of nuisance such as wasp larvae, rodents, and insects. With them being predators, we are able to keep the balance of the population of pests. They are saving us cash that we have to spend when we are trying to remove them. But, gordonwildlife.org states that we are paying that extra money to exterminate raccoons instead and talks about how we are rude to them.

According to wildlifexteam.com, raccoons are in fact exceedingly intelligent. A dog has the ability to understand over one hundred and sixty-five words and the top dogs (such as border collies) can even understand even hundreds of more words. But, raccoons are even smarter than dogs or even cats. They approximately have a similar IQ as monkeys and once they solve a problem, they can remember the solution for 3 years or even more. Meanwhile, humans forget 80 percent of the information within twenty-four hours if not reviewed. Raccoons were so intelligent that the scientists in the 1960s decided to study them. However, their intelligence was out of the box and always found a way to open their laboratory cages. Eventually, due to their frequent escapes that made the scientists frustrated, they gave up on studying them, proving once again their significance.

In conclusion, raccoons are an animal that are very beneficial to our ecosystem. Their intelligence is highly advanced and they help prevent diseases spread by carrion. They are upsettingly mistaken as pests while they are just helping clean out the “real pests.” But, by looking at the raccoon’s dietary preferences, environmental cleaning habits, and their overall significance could help reveal their truth.