Although there are three species of raccoon, the most common and often referred to is the boreal raccoon. The truth is that each species of washing bear is naturally distributed in different areas of the American continent, and the habitats of the Cozumel raccoon and the boreal raccoon may sometimes overlap.
From now on, with the term raccoon we are going to refer to the boreal raccoon, which is the one that appears on other continents, already as an invasive species. It is also the species that some have as pets.
Keep reading this article on our site all about the raccoon's habitat and enjoy learning more about this funny mammal with us.
Raccoon Distribution
The raccoon is an omnivorous mammal (despite being classified as a carnivore due to its morphology) tremendously adaptable to the environment, to the point of being able to move from the deciduous or mixed forests that are usually its natural home to urban areas.
They even develop specialized behaviors depending on where each raccoon family was raised.
Naturally, the raccoon can be found from Canada to Central America, with higher population density in the southern half of Canada, in the United States and in non-desert areas of Mexico, even reaching Panama. But the truth is that as a result of the distribution of raccoons as pets to irresponsible people who end up abandoning them, raccoons can be found almost anywhere in the world except Antarctica.
In Europe they prosper, in Russia and they are beginning to be a problem in some points of special ecological interest in the Mediterranean countries, where the native fauna is not prepared to coexist with such an adaptable animal. In the Caucasian regions, the presence of raccoons is due to the breeding of some species that managed to escape from fur farms. The same has happened in Germany and the Netherlands.
There is not much data on the distribution of the raccoon in Asia, although it is known that since the 1970s some animals have been imported as pets. In this environment, where the released specimens would live with their relatives, the tanuki or raccoon dogs, it does not seem that they pose such a serious environmental problem.
The raccoon in a wooded habitat
We found raccoons in a natural habitat of wooded areas. Wild raccoons proper seek the proximity of watercourses, if possible small streams, where they can catch crabs, frogs and other small animal species that they catch with their hands.
They do not present problems of coexistence with some neighbors such as skunks and, if the need for food justifies it, they can move to really uncomfortable areas, such as a cave full of bats in search of food, and it is that paying attention to the raccoon's diet is of course very important if we want to know everything about them.
Most commonly, these unfamiliar raccoons sleep in treetops or in burrows abandoned by other similarly sized animals. The decrease in their activity that they experience in the winter months in the coldest areas where are naturally distributed, marks the tendency to occupy sheltered sites in those stages. Despite this, raccoons do not hibernate.
The raccoon in an urban habitat
Raccoons that have adapted to urban environments lose some of their habits, such as soaking food before eating it, and they develop other different ones such as the ability to cross roads and not be run over.
In these cases the raccoons prefer to use basements of houses or some abandoned lot to settle, instead of the more open spaces chosen by their forest brothers. The main source of food for these urban raccoons is the leftovers of human beings, because what can be guaranteed is that wherever there is something to eat, there will be raccoons very close by. They frequent the surroundings of houses with a cat door for small mammals, because they also like pet food.
Currently the population of raccoons habituated to human presence exceeds the population of rural raccoons by more than ten times.
While some can start to be a problem because they are carriers of diseases such as rabies (if they are not vaccinated, like the domestic ones, there is supposed to be no problem), the raccoons in the wooded areas start to be threatened, in part by the destruction of their natural habitat And it seems that being adaptable is not enough to ensure the prosperity of a species in times that running
