Tag: Raccoons

Raccoons can be territorial. Especially around kits and food.

We have lots of raccoons and lots of kits.

We promote peaceful dining by putting out enough food for everyone.

The challenge to this rationale is simple; the more food, the more raccoons. The more raccoons, the more food.

Can you say “cycle”?

We’ve had as many as nineteen racoons visiting us at once. It might have been more. A lot.

Officially, we’d call it “a lot.”

All those “a lot of raccoons” got along fine. We had five piles of food distributed a few yards from each other. The various families got along well. It reminded me of that scene in The Godfather where the Five Families got together to discuss business.

Makes me wonder which of the raccoons in our yard is Marlon Brando.

 

The below video was taken one month after the This Is How It’s Suppose to Be. Not seeing our children for a month during their usual winter-bulking period concerned us. Greatly.

As I’ve mentioned in a few recent Wildlife posts, we’re experiencing loss of habitat on the other side of our woods. We’ve seen an increase in our backyard visitors. All are still healthy (thank the Old Ones) and it concerns us. Two-Legs think they’re the top of the food-chain. They forget when they were the bottom.

Keep the memory. Stay humble.

 

I wrote Can’t We All Just Get Along? last week, and what a difference a day or two makes.

Hester is accepted by Hyancinthe and her kits.

Took no time at all.

Did take a little prodding.

And now all is good.

The original Outer Limits‘s 1st season, 3rd episode was The Architects of Fear. Like many of that series’ episodes, it stayed with me through the years.

It deals with some humans’ fear that the world is heading towards Armageddon and the only way to save ourselves is to introduce a threat from “out there.”

It goes horribly wrong and I won’t give any spoilers other than it’s highly recommended.

But that “external threat making us behave” motif.

I doubt the raccoons consider me an external threat so much as a Two-Legs with food.

And still, all is good for now. Let’s rejoice in that.

 

Rivalries.

Well, not quite rivalries so much as territorialities.

They happen in The Wild.

Even when there’s abundant food available.

We noticed similar behavior in humans when we were in business. People swarmed where there was activity, not necessarily where there was abundance.

My inner anthropologist, psychologist, and sociologist kicked in big time when such things occurred. Didn’t matter if there was something demonstrably better over there, over here is where everyone gathered so this, by definition, must be better, even when it obviously wasn’t.

But the business rules and mindsets rarely made sense. Too often people wanted to be in business but continued being avaricious without thinking things through; always short term success superceded long term stability.

Probably why so many companies fold so quickly regardless of their offering’s worthiness.

I can almost understand such stupidity – especially in siloed communities – and do understand it in animals. It’s a survival mechanism.

But it’s not in humans.

And we’re suppose to be smarter.

Yeah, right.

 

There is a sense of peace and charity when one sees The Wild comfortable and safe.

It is rare for them, you know.

There is no such thing as deep sleep in The Wild. In a world filled with predator and prey, deep sleep is dangerous.

Even we, modern humans, could not enter deep sleep until relatively recently in our evolutionary and cultural history. Children could enter deep sleep but once they became ambulatory, such relaxations were out, forgotten, denied.

Must keep watch. From animal predators originally; large cats, bears, carnivorous flightless birds, wolves and similar roving pack dogs, boars, … Sheltering in trees meant you had to be awake enough to catch yourself if you rolled off the branch. Eventually humans realized shelters were a good thing, but that also meant predators went from hungry animals to other humans who wanted your shelter, your children, your mate, …

Even now-a-days, truly deep sleep is a luxury few allow themselves. Nancy Reagan said she kept a small revolver in her nightstand in case anyone broke in.

Good for her, and that meant she either slept little or extremely lightly; she’d end up shooting Ron on his way back from the lou otherwise.

Such deep, dreamful sleep is not seen often in The Wild.

So when we see an animal, Hester the raccoon is an example, being restful and at peace, munching away, having a sip or two of water, we rejoice.