Raccoons are often painted as sly, smart creatures who might be resourceful in scavenging for food. Loved by many from a distance, these cute creatures have a lot going for them. Such as having dexterous hands; they actually have what seem to be five fingers on each paw and they are quite useful when they come to scavenge in your garbage, break into your garage, or peek in your cooler.
Their cool bandana-like mask isn’t just for show either, the black band around their eyes actually assists them with sight. The dark colors help to absorb light and reduce sharp glares that can hinder their vision – sort of like NFL players, and in the dead of night it also helps them to see since it’s easier for them to distinguish different contrasts in objects.
In fact, if you were to give them a puzzle and test them to complete it or any other few simple tasks, they’d probably succeed – so long as there’s food in it for them as a reward. They’ve demonstrated this endlessly time and time again in labs. In the mid 1900s, ethologist H.B. Davis provided 12 raccoons with a progression of locks to break.
The reward of course was treats inside the creations, of which they needed to solve and navigate bolts, latches, hooks, and buttons, with certain containers having a combination of more than one of these.
Eventually the raccoons were successful in passing 11 of the 13 mechanisms. However, despite these impressive feet (or hands,) they are sometimes also seen as clumsy, silly animals.
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For example, there was this hilarious video captured of a burglar trapped on top of someone’s roof, and it wasn’t a human or cat!
Wildlife Emergency Services got a call from a concerned mortgage holder in the Santa Cruz Mountains saying that a raccoon had chomped through their rooftop and eventually wore herself out causing her to get stuck.
As indicated by the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter, she was simply attempting to return to her baby raccoons. The property owner wasn’t aware of this, and had the hole patched up and fixed while the mother raccoon was outside, and the kits (baby raccoons) were still inside.
The raccoon mother was adamant about getting back to your young and began biting and wedging herself through the rooftop. Subsequently to getting partially through the rooftop, she became trapped in the opening. She was mostly inside, but her hind and tail were sticking out as shown in this entertaining video.
Eventually, a rescue group showed up and was able to help the mama raccoon. They worked carefully to not injure the raccoon or damage the property and widened the opening to allow the raccoon to slip through and rejoin her kits.
“Now that the mama racoon is back safe with her babies, Wildlife Emergency Services will help the citizens to set up a repellant barrier to safely and humanely have mama and her kids move along to a more appropriate home,” the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter said.
