Originally Published: Slate • September 30, 2016
Late this summer, a raccoon kept entering my mom’s house through her cat door. This particular creature was savvy, dexterous, and driven, a kind of super-raccoon combining all the strengths of its species with none of the reticence of its country brethren. This isn’t the first time a raccoon has snuck through my mom’s cat door over the past five or six years. The latest invader, however, had moxie…
It turns out, we all may be unwittingly participating in the mass education of raccoons, which is resulting in the creatures’ increasing domination of the human landscape. The raccoon population has enjoyed an “astonishing” surge over the past 80 years. They’re apparently at highest density in the suburbs, but they appear to be also growing in cities. The animals have adjusted remarkably well to living alongside human beings—perhaps because when they live with us, they seem to learn from us.