Raccoons often capture our hearts with their masked faces, nimble paws, and reputation for being clever and curious creatures. Social media is filled with captivating videos showcasing seemingly domesticated raccoons, leading many to wonder if these animals could become unique and engaging pets. Stories even circulate about individuals campaigning to legalize raccoon ownership in certain areas.
However, despite their undeniable charm, the reality is that raccoons are definitively not suitable pets.
While the idea of a pet raccoon might seem intriguing, the significant challenges and risks associated with keeping them far outweigh any perceived benefits. Instead of inviting them into our homes, it’s crucial to appreciate raccoons from a safe and respectful distance. This article will delve into seven critical reasons why bringing a raccoon into your living space is generally inadvisable, emphasizing why these masked bandits are best admired in their natural habitat.
Here are seven compelling reasons why you should reconsider making a raccoon a pet.
1) Serious Health Risks: Rabies and Infectious Diseases
Raccoons are known carriers of numerous diseases that pose significant health risks to humans, domestic animals, and even themselves. Notably, they are primary vectors for rabies in many regions. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), raccoons account for a substantial portion, nearly 30% of all reported rabies cases within the United States. This alarming statistic underscores the very real danger of rabies transmission from raccoons.
Beyond rabies, raccoons can harbor a range of other zoonotic parasites and infectious diseases. These can easily spread to humans, family members, and existing pets within a household. Fleas and ticks, commonly carried by raccoons, are vectors for diseases themselves and can infest both people and pets, introducing further health complications and discomfort.
Furthermore, raccoon feces present another serious health hazard. They can contain eggs of Baylisascaris procyonis, commonly known as raccoon roundworm. This parasitic worm can cause severe infections in both humans and pets. The microscopic eggs in raccoon droppings are easily dispersed into the air, making infection a risk even without direct contact with the animals themselves.
Common Diseases Associated with Raccoons:
- Rabies
- Baylisascaris procyonis (raccoon roundworm)
- Leptospirosis
- Giardiasis
- Salmonella
- Canine distemper (while primarily affecting dogs, it can impact other animals and highlights the disease-carrying potential)
2) Unpredictable Behavior and Untamed Temperament
Raccoons are undeniably intelligent, curious, and energetic animals. Their playful nature and problem-solving abilities are often highlighted in online videos. However, these very traits, combined with their wild instincts, contribute to why they are unsuitable as pets. They are demanding, require constant stimulation, and their behavior can be highly unpredictable.
Raccoons are born to roam freely in the wild. Confining them to a domestic setting goes against their fundamental nature, often leading to frustration and behavioral issues. Their remarkable dexterity, equipped with long, tapered fingers and sharp nails, enables them to explore and manipulate their environment. In captivity, this translates to a relentless drive to escape enclosures and explore every nook and cranny of their surroundings, often destructively.
It’s crucial to remember that raccoons are, at their core, wild animals. Their innate instincts will always supersede any attempts at domestication or training. While young raccoons might appear docile, their behavior can change dramatically as they mature, becoming increasingly unpredictable and potentially aggressive, especially when they feel threatened, confined, or during mating seasons. Trying to apply typical pet training methods to a raccoon is often ineffective and can even be counterproductive, leading to stress for both the animal and the owner.
3) Aggression and Destructive Outbursts
The transition from a cuddly baby raccoon to a sexually mature adult can bring about significant behavioral shifts. Once raccoons reach maturity, their temperament can become markedly less predictable.
Similar to hormonal teenagers, adult raccoons can exhibit mood swings and act out when they are upset or displeased. These intelligent creatures can become surprisingly vengeful, territorial, and aggressive in an instant, often as a means of asserting dominance. This behavior makes safe interaction with humans, especially children, extremely challenging and risky.
In a typical home environment, raccoons can easily feel trapped and confined, triggering heightened agitation and aggressive tendencies. This feeling of confinement exacerbates their natural inclination to explore and can lead to destructive behaviors as they attempt to escape or express their frustration.
It is vital to understand that adult raccoons cannot be truly tamed in the same way as domesticated animals. Keeping an adult raccoon in a home, particularly with children or other vulnerable individuals present, poses significant safety risks due to their potential for unpredictable aggression and destructive outbursts.
4) Extensive Property Damage
Raccoons are naturally wide-ranging animals. Their typical home range can span from one to three miles in the wild. Confining them indoors directly contradicts their innate need for space and exploration. Restricting their movement within a house environment is a recipe for frustration and damage.
Wild animals confined in small spaces for extended periods often become irritable and destructive. Even when contained in a cage, a trapped raccoon will instinctively reach out and grab anything within reach, often tearing and destroying it. Once allowed to roam freely indoors, their exploratory nature translates into investigating every possible area of your home.
The practical consequence of keeping a raccoon is extensive damage to your property. Expect torn and scratched furniture, chewed electrical cords posing fire hazards, and broken household items. Their powerful claws and teeth, combined with their inquisitive nature, can wreak havoc on a home that is not specifically designed to withstand their explorations.
Effectively raccoon-proofing a home requires a level of preparedness far beyond childproofing. It demands constant vigilance and often significant structural modifications, making it an unrealistic and often financially draining endeavor for most pet owners.
5) Demanding Care and Financial Burden
Caring for a raccoon as a pet is not a casual undertaking; it is a full-time commitment that can quickly become a significant financial strain. Ensuring a raccoon’s safety and preventing escapes necessitates investing in specialized and expensive enclosures. These cages must be exceptionally sturdy, escape-proof, and equipped with secure locking mechanisms to contain their determined efforts to get out.
Dietary Needs of Raccoons:
Unlike common pets, you cannot simply purchase raccoon food off the shelf at a standard pet store. Raccoons are omnivores with complex nutritional requirements, consuming both plant and animal matter in their natural diet. Providing a captive raccoon with a balanced and appropriate diet is essential for their health and well-being. This typically involves a combination of:
- High-quality commercial omnivore or raccoon-specific diet (often requiring specialized ordering)
- Fresh fruits and vegetables (apples, berries, carrots, leafy greens, etc.)
- Cooked lean proteins (chicken, turkey, eggs)
- Nuts and seeds (in moderation)
- Constant access to clean, fresh water
Raccoons require a significant amount of fiber in their diet, necessitating a generous inclusion of leafy greens and other high-fiber foods. Furthermore, vitamin and mineral supplementation is often necessary to ensure they receive all the nutrients essential for their overall health. Overfeeding can easily lead to obesity in captive raccoons, making careful diet management crucial.
Veterinary Care Challenges:
Legal raccoon ownership is restricted to less than 20 states in the United States. If you reside in one of the majority of states where raccoon ownership is illegal or heavily restricted, finding a veterinarian willing and legally able to treat your raccoon will be extremely difficult. You may be forced to travel considerable distances to access veterinary care, if you can find it at all. Adding to the financial burden are the costs of repairing property damage resulting from their behavioral outbursts and mischievous activities. The cumulative expenses of proper raccoon care, specialized housing, diet, and potential veterinary needs can quickly become overwhelming.
6) Extreme Difficulty in Potty Training
Raccoons are known for their intelligence and problem-solving skills, but housebreaking them presents a formidable challenge due to their inherent stubbornness.
While raccoons can be trained to use a litter box with persistent effort, their compliance is often conditional and unreliable. If they become irritated or feel slighted, they are prone to expressing their displeasure through inappropriate elimination around the house. Raccoons are known to hold grudges, and inconsistent potty habits can become an ongoing source of frustration and sanitation issues for owners. Unlike domesticated pets that are bred for cooperation, raccoons retain their wild independence, making consistent training a near-impossible task for many owners.
7) Incompatible Nocturnal Lifestyle
As nocturnal creatures, raccoons are naturally most active during the night. This fundamental aspect of their biology creates inherent conflicts when kept as pets in human households, where activity patterns are typically reversed.
For raccoons confined indoors, their nocturnal activity can become a significant disruption for their human families. Pet raccoons are likely to be most energetic and active at night, potentially keeping owners awake with scratching at enclosures or escaping and causing disturbances throughout the house while everyone else is trying to sleep. This mismatch in activity cycles can lead to sleep deprivation for owners and increased stress for both humans and the raccoon.
Inevitably people will get a raccoon, realize it’s a mistake and let it go. The raccoon will not be equipped to live outside and therefore it could starve, die of disease, or destroy the property looking for a way in.
Meg Pearson, Training Manager
Conclusion: Appreciate Raccoons in the Wild
While the idea of having a pet raccoon might initially seem appealing, the reality is fraught with significant challenges and potential dangers. From serious health risks like rabies and parasitic diseases to unpredictable behavior, destructive tendencies, and demanding care requirements, raccoons are simply not well-suited to life as domestic companions. Their wild instincts and complex needs are fundamentally incompatible with the typical home environment.
Instead of attempting to make a raccoon a pet, it is far more responsible and ethical to appreciate these fascinating animals from a distance, in their natural habitat. Their intelligence and adaptability are remarkable, and they play a vital role in their ecosystems. For those seeking the joys of pet ownership, countless domesticated animals like dogs, cats, and rabbits are available and thrive in human care, offering companionship without the inherent risks and challenges associated with keeping a wild animal like a raccoon. Consider visiting your local animal shelter and offering a loving home to a pet that is truly suited to domestication.
