Washington State Department of
Wildlife
Living with Wildlife
Raccoons
The raccoon (Procyon lotor) is a native mammal, measuring
about 3 feet long, including its 12-inch, bushy, ringed
tail. Because their hind legs are longer than the front
legs, raccoons have a hunched appearance when they walk or
run. Each of their front feet has five dexterous toes,
allowing raccoons to grasp and manipulate food and other
items.
Raccoons prefer forest areas near a stream or water source,
but have adapted to various environments throughout
Washington. Raccoon populations can get quite large in
urban areas, owing to hunting and trapping restrictions,
few predators, and human-supplied food.
Adult raccoons weigh 15 to 40 pounds, their weight being a
result of genetics, age, available food, and habitat
location. Males have weighed in at over 60 pounds. A
raccoon in the wild will probably weigh less than the
urbanized raccoon that has learned to live on handouts, pet
food, and garbage-can leftovers.
As long as raccoons are kept out of human homes, not
cornered, and not treated as pets, they are not dangerous.
Facts
about Raccoons
Food
and Feeding Habitats
Raccoons will eat almost anything, but are particularly
fond of creatures found in water—clams, crayfish,
frogs, fish, and snails.
Raccoons also eat insects, slugs, dead animals, birds and
bird eggs, as well as fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds.
Around humans, raccoons often eat garbage and pet food.
Although not great hunters, raccoons can catch young
gophers, squirrels, mice, and rats.
Except during the breeding season and for females with
young, raccoons are solitary. Individuals will eat
together if a large amount of food is available in an area.
Den
Sites and Resting Sites
Dens are used for shelter and raising young. They include
abandoned burrows dug by other mammals, areas in or under
large rock piles and brush piles, hollow logs, and holes in
trees.
Den sites also include wood duck nest-boxes, attics, crawl
spaces, chimneys, and abandoned vehicles.
In urban areas, raccoons normally use den sites as daytime
rest sites. In wooded areas, they often rest in trees.
Raccoons generally move to different den or daytime rest
site every few days and do not follow a predictable
pattern. Only a female with young or an animal “holed
up” during a cold spell will use the same den for any
length of time. Several raccoons may den together during
winter storms.
Reproduction
and Home Range
Raccoons pair up only during the breeding season, and
mating occurs as early as January to as late as June. The
peak mating period is March to April.
After a 65-day gestation period, two to three kits are
born.
The kits remain in the den until they are about seven weeks
old, at which time they can walk, run, climb, and begin to
occupy alternate dens.
At eight to ten weeks of age, the young regularly accompany
their mother outside the den and forage for them selves. By
12 weeks, the kits roam on their own for several nights
before returning to their mother.
The kits remain with their mother in her home range through
winter, and in early spring seek out their own territories.
The size of a raccoon’s home range as well as its
nightly hunting area varies greatly depending on the
habitat and food supply. Home range diameters of 1 mile are
known to occur in urban areas.
Mortality
and Longevity
Raccoons die from encounters with vehicles, hunters, and
trappers, and from disease, starvation, and
predation.
Young raccoons are the main victims of starvation, since
they have very little fat reserves to draw from during food
shortages in late winter and early spring.
Raccoon predators include cougars, bobcats, coyotes, and
domestic dogs. Large owls and eagles will prey on young
raccoons.
The average life span of a raccoon in the wild is 2 to 3
years; captive raccoons have lived 13.
Preventing
Conflicts
Raccoons
Too Close for Comfort. If a raccoon
ever approaches too closely, make yourself appear larger:
stand up if sitting, shout, and wave your arms. If
necessary, throw stones or send the raccoon off with a
dousing of water from a hose or bucket. If a raccoon
continues to act aggressively or strangely (circling,
staggering as if drunk or disoriented, or shows unnatural
tameness) it may be sick or injured. In such a case, call a
wildlife rehabilitator, your local wildlife office, or the
state patrol. If aggressive raccoons are routinely seen in
your area, prepare your children for a possible encounter.
Explain the reasons why raccoons live there (habitat, food
sources, species adaptability) and what they should do if
one approaches them. By shouting a set phrase such as
“Go away raccoon!” when they encounter one,
instead of a general scream, children will inform nearby
adults of the raccoon’s presence. Demonstrate and
rehearse encounter behavior with the children. If a raccoon
finds its way into your house, stay calm, close surrounding
interior doors, leave the room, and let the animal find its
way back out through the open door, window, or pet door. If
necessary, gently use a broom to corral the raccoon
outside. (Do not corner a raccoon, thereby forcing it to
defend itself.)
A raccoon’s search for food may lead it to a
vegetable garden, fish pond, garbage can, or chicken coop.
Its search for a den site may lead it to an attic, chimney,
or crawl space. The most effective way to prevent conflicts
is to modify the habitat around your home so as not to
attract raccoons. Recommendations on how to do this are
given below:
Don’t
feed raccoons. Feeding
raccoons may create undesirable situations for you, your
children, neighbors, pets, and the raccoons themselves.
Raccoons that are fed by people often lose their fear of
humans and may become aggressive when not fed as expected.
Artificial feeding also tends to concentrate raccoons in a
small area; overcrowding can spread diseases and parasites.
Finally, these hungry visitors might approach a neighbor
who doesn’t share your appreciation of the animals.
The neighbor might choose to remove these raccoons, or have
them removed.
Don’t
give raccoons access to garbage. Keep your
garbage can lid on tight by securing it with rope, chain,
bungee cords, or weights. Better yet, buy garbage cans with
clamps or other mechanisms that hold lids on. To prevent
tipping, secure side handles to metal or wooden stakes
driven into the ground. Or keep your cans in tight-fitting
bins, a shed, or a garage. Put garbage cans out for pickup
in the morning, after raccoons have returned to their
resting areas.
Feed
dogs and cats indoors and keep them in at night.
If
you must feed your pets outside, do so in late morning or
at midday, and pick up food, water bowls, leftovers, and
spilled food well before dark every day.
Keep pets indoors at night. If cornered, raccoons may
attack dogs and cats. Bite wounds from raccoons can result
in fractures and disease transmission.
Prevent
raccoons from entering pet doors. Keep indoor pet
food and any other food away from a pet door. Lock the pet
door at night. If it is necessary to have it remain open,
put an electronically activated opener on your pet’s
collar.
Note: Floodlights or
motion detector lights placed above the pet door to scare
raccoons are not long-term solutions.
Put
food in secure compost containers and clean up barbecue
areas. Don’t put
food of any kind in open compost piles; instead, use a
securely covered compost structure or a commercially
available raccoon-proof composter to prevent attracting
raccoons and getting exposed to their droppings. A covered
worm box is another alternative. If burying food scraps,
cover them with at least 8 inches of soil and don’t
leave any garbage above ground in the area—including
the stinky shovel.
Clean barbecue grills and grease traps thoroughly following
each use.
Eliminate
access to denning sites. Raccoons
commonly use chimneys, attics, and spaces under houses,
porches, and sheds as den sites. Close any potential
entries with ¼-inch mesh hardware cloth, boards, or metal
flashing. Make all connections flush and secure to keep
mice, rats, and other mammals out. Make sure you
don’t trap an animal inside when you seal off a
potential entry (see the handout “Evicting Animals
from Buildings”). For information on securing
chimneys, see “Raccoons in Dumpsters and Down
Chimneys.”
Prevent raccoons from accessing rooftops by trimming tree
limbs away from structures and by attaching sheets of metal
flashing around corners of buildings. Commercial products
that prevent climbing are available from farm supply
centers and bird-control supply companies on the Internet.
Remove vegetation on buildings, such as English ivy, which
provide raccoons a way to climb structures and hide their
access point inside.
Raccoons
in Dumpsters and Down Chimneys
Raccoons are enticed by the food smells in dumpsters. When
the lids are open they climb in and can’t climb the
slippery sides to get out.To help them escape, put a strong
branch or board in the dumpster for the raccoons to climb
out on.
If your disposal company leaves dumpster lids open, install
a sign telling employees that it’s vital to keep the
lid closed so animals don’t get trapped inside.
Consider installing a totally enclosed trash-compacting
dumpster.The trash is deposited in the front and regularly
compacted.
In spring and summer, a female raccoon may be enticed into
the dark, quiet, and secure environment of your chimney for
a nesting place.
If you hear a large animal on the roof, or growls and
whines coming from the chimney at night, there is probably
a raccoon family inside. Using a powerful flashlight during
the day, look for a raccoon down the chimney. (If spider
webs are strung across the inside, you can be reasonably
sure that no animal is using the chimney.)
The easiest solution to removing raccoons from a chimney is
to wait for them to move on their own. After eight to ten
weeks the female and young will leave and not return.
If raccoons need to be evicted, do not smoke them out and
do not pour anything, including naphtha flakes or
mothballs, down the chimney.Adult raccoons can easily climb
out of a chimney, but the babies can’t.The
concentrated vapors can also damage the infant
raccoons’ mucous membranes and make an adult raccoon
extremely agitated while attempting to flee from the
vapors.
Instead, harass the adult female using the following
methods until being there is no longer worth her effort.
She will move her young to an alternate den, one by one,
holding them by the back of the neck in her mouth.
Note: Any time you
try to evict any mother animal, there is a chance that she
may leave some or all of the babies behind.
To encourage the female raccoon to leave:
1. Keep the chimney damper closed and put a loud radio
tuned to a talk station in the fireplace.
2.With a short broomstick, pole, or board, bang on the
underside of the damper as frequently as possible.
3.Wearing gloves, sprinkle coyote urine, or raccoon
eviction fluid (available from farm supply centers, hunting
stores, and the Internet) on a rag and wedge it in above
the damper. If none of these natural repellents are
available, place a bowl containing a cup of ammonia on a
footstool just under the damper. If needed, open the damper
1/8-inch. Most dampers are not airtight. Keep what
deterrents you can in place 24 hours a day during a period
of mild weather, and give the raccoons two to three nights
to move out. On the night of departure there may be a lot
of racket caused by the female raccoon’s frequent
climbing up and down the chimney as she retrieves her
young.
In urban areas, harassment techniques may not work owing to
raccoons’ familiarity with humans. In such cases,
call a wildlife damage control company and have them assess
the situation (call your WDFW Regional Widllife Office for
a list of Wildlife Damage Control Companies).
To make sure the eviction process was successful, shine a
powerful flashlight down the chimney during the day and
look for raccoons.Tap the chimney with a hard object and
listen for any sounds of movement. If a young raccoon is
left behind, it may be that the mother has abandoned it. In
these rare cases it is best to hire a wildlife damage
control company to remove the animal.
Once the raccoons are gone, promptly call a professional
chimney sweep to remove any debris and to install a
commercially designed and engineered chimney cap (homemade
caps are often unsafe and may be a fire hazard). You can
still have fires in your fireplace; however, the
“cap” will keep raccoons and other wildlife
out.
Fence
orchards and vegetable gardens. Raccoons can
easily climb wood or wire fences, or bypass them by using
overhanging limbs of trees or shrubs. Wire fences will need
to have a mesh size that is no wider than 3 inches to keep
young raccoons out.
Protect
fruit trees, bird feeders, and nest boxes.
To
prevent raccoons from climbing fruit trees, poles, and
other vertical structures, install a metal or heavy plastic
barrier. Twenty-four-inch long aluminum or galvanized
vent-pipe, available at most hardware stores, can serve as
a premade barrier around a narrow support.
Note: Raccoons will
attempt to use surrounding trees or structures as an avenue
to access the area above the barrier.
Alternatively, a funnel-shaped piece of aluminum flashing
can be fitted around the tree or other vertical structure.
The outside edge of the flared metal should be a minimum of
18 inches away from the support. Cut the material with tin
snips and file down any sharp edges.
Regularly pick up fallen birdseed and fruit to prevent
attracting raccoons.
Trapping
Raccoons
Trapping and relocating a raccoon several miles away seems
an appealing method of resolving a conflict because it is
perceived as giving the “problem animal” a
second chance in a new home. Unfortunately, the reality of
the situation is quite different. Raccoons typically try to
return to their original territories, often getting hit by
a car or killed by a predator in the process. If they
remain in the new area, they may get into fights
(oftentimes to the death) with resident raccoons for
limited food, shelter, or nesting sites. Raccoons may also
transmit diseases to rural populations that they have
picked up from urban pets. Finally, if a place “in
the wild” or an urban green space is perfect for
raccoons, raccoons are probably already there. It
isn’t fair to the animals already living there to
release another competitor into their home range.
Raccoons used to a particular food source, type of shelter,
or human activity will seek out familiar situations and
surroundings. People, organizations, or agencies that
illegally move raccoons should be willing to assume
liability for any damages or injuries caused by these
animals. Precisely for these reasons, raccoons posing a
threat to human and pet safety should not be relocated.
In many cases, moving raccoons will not solve the original
problem because other raccoons will replace them and cause
similar conflicts. Hence, it is more effective to make the
site less attractive to raccoons than it is to routinely
trap them.
Trapping also may not be legal in some urban areas; check
with local authorities. Transporting animals without the
proper permit is also unlawful in most cases (see
“Legal Status”). See the handout on
“Trapping Wildlife” for information on trapping
raccoons.
Lethal control is a last resort and can never be justified
without first applying the above-described nonlethal
control techniques. Lethal control is rarely a long-term
solution since other raccoons are likely to move in if
food, water, or shelter remains available.
If all efforts to dissuade a problem raccoon fail, the
animal may have to be trapped.
Public
Health Concerns
A disease that contributes significantly to raccoon
mortality is
canine distemper. Canine
distemper is also a common disease fatal to domestic dogs,
foxes, coyotes, mink, otters, weasels, and skunks. It is
caused by a virus and is spread most often when animals
come in contact with the bodily secretions of animals
infected with the disease. Gloves, cages, and other objects
that have come in contact with infected animals can also
contain the virus. The best prevention against canine
distemper is to have your dogs vaccinated and kept away
from raccoons.
Raccoons in the Washington often have
roundworms (like domestic
dogs and cats do, but from a different worm). Raccoon
roundworm does not usually cause a serious problem for
raccoons. However, roundworm eggs shed in raccoon droppings
can cause mild to serious illness in other animals and
humans. Although rarely documented anywhere in the United
States, raccoon roundworm can infect a person who
accidentally ingests or inhales the parasite’s eggs.
Prevention consists of never touching or inhaling raccoon
droppings, using rubber gloves and a mask when cleaning
areas (including traps) that have been occupied by
raccoons, and keeping young children and pets away from
areas where raccoons concentrate. (If washing raccoon
droppings from a roof, watch where the liquid matter is
going.) Routinely encourage or assist your children to wash
their hands after playing outdoors. Unfortunately, raccoon
roundworm eggs can remain alive in soil and other places
for several months.
If a person is bitten or scratched by a raccoon,
immediately scrub the wound with soap and water. Flush the
wound liberally with tap water. In other parts of the
United States raccoons can carry
rabies. Contact your
physician and the local health department immediately. If
your pet is bitten, follow the same cleansing procedure and
contact your veterinarian.
Legal
Status
Because legal status, trapping restrictions, and other
information about raccoons change, contact your local
wildlife office for updates.
The raccoon is classified as both a furbearer and a game
animal (WAC 232-12-007). A hunting or trapping license is
required to hunt or trap raccoons during an open season. A
property owner or the owner’s immediate family,
employee, or tenant may kill or trap a raccoon on that
property if it is damaging crops or domestic animals (RCW
77.36.030). In such cases, no permit is necessary for the
use of live (cage) traps. However, a special trapping
permit is required for the use of all traps other than live
traps (RCW 77.15.192, 77.15.194; WAC 232\'312-142).
It
is unlawful to release wildlife anywhere within the state,
other than on the property where it was legally trapped,
without a permit to do so (RCW 77.15.250;
WAC 232-12-271). Except for bona fide public or private
zoological parks, persons and entities are prohibited from
importing raccoons into Washington State without a permit
to do so (WAC 246-100-191).
Adapted
from “Living with Wildlife in the Pacific
Northwest”
Written by: Russell Link, WDFW Urban Wildlife Biologist.
Copyright 2004 by the Washington Department of Fish and
Wildlife.