The Intelligence of Raccoons
If raccoons are so smart, how come they have to eat my garbage?
———- from Justin Friedow of Columbia, MO
As anyone who’s familiar with the furry masked bandits may know, raccoons are the stock brokers of the animal kingdom. So instead of rifling your garbage can for food, they’re actually looking for a current issue of the Wall Street Journal or one of those start-up magazines. Raccoons would much rather eat in restaurants than devour your garbage, and they know as well as anyone that money makes the world go round. Science once thought raccoons washed their food before they ate it, but now we know their vigorous hand rubbing in water is a desperate attempt to remove their fingerprints. A lone raccoon, by the way, can easily open a backpack at a campground, while a gang of raccoons – one steering and two working the pedals – can steal a car. So if all those raccoons are doing is stealing your garbage and old Fortune Magazines, consider yourself lucky.
As anyone who’s familiar with the furry masked bandits may know, raccoons are the stock brokers of the animal kingdom. So instead of rifling your garbage can for food, they’re actually looking for a current issue of the Wall Street Journal or one of those start-up magazines. Raccoons would much rather eat in restaurants than devour your garbage, and they know as well as anyone that money makes the world go round. Science once thought raccoons washed their food before they ate it, but now we know their vigorous hand rubbing in water is a desperate attempt to remove their fingerprints. A lone raccoon, by the way, can easily open a backpack at a campground, while a gang of raccoons – one steering and two working the pedals – can steal a car. So if all those raccoons are doing is stealing your garbage and old Fortune Magazines, consider yourself lucky. 