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Raccoons are the Front Men
for Montana’s Bears
By
Diane Tipton, Montana FW&P Information Officer
Raccoons, with their
ringed tails and little bandit masks are unmistakable.
Unlike bears, raccoons don't hibernate, so Montanans may
experience a raccoon raid winter or summer.
These industrious
creatures are intelligent, inquisitive, very adaptable and
are excellent climbers. They eat fish, insects, small
mammals, fruit, berries and corn—but like bears—they will
seek out the easiest meal. If that meal is being offered on
your back porch, around a barn or outbuilding or in your
summer garden—a raccoon is sure to find it. Like a bear,
raccoons will also eat pet food.
A raccoon can be a
useful early warning system. If raccoons are giving you
trouble now, they are pointing out areas that could also
easily attract bears coming out of hibernation in early to
mid-April. Where a raccoon is feasting today a bear could be
feasting soon, so now is the time to make changes.
Another quality a
raccoon shares with a bear is persistence. Take the visits
campers and floaters on the Smith River sometimes
experience. In one case, Aaron Berg, now a Montana Fish,
Wildlife & Parks warden in Fort Peck, was working as a
ranger on the river. Nightly visits by a raccoon at Camp
Baker were becoming a real nuisance. Even after he showed
floaters and campers how to properly clean up their sites
and secure food, a raccoon still worked its way into
coolers, tents, and dry bags and boxes.
Berg tried using a
standard trap baited with corn on the cob smeared in peanut
butter, an irresistible combination to a raccoon.
After losing his bait
three nights in a row and failing to trap anything, Berg
wondered if the raccoon was too big to be trapped in a
standard raccoon and skunk trap with its 12-inch opening.
He borrowed a trap for
larger animals like coyotes, domestic dogs, and critters of
like size and set it with his popular bait. That night he
caught the largest male raccoon he’d ever seen—easily 35 to
40 pounds. The creature was thriving all season on
granola, sweets, and other high-energy, fattening items that
taste so good on a float trip.
Berg’s solution was to
drive the raccoon across the river into the mountains
about 30 miles away. He painted its backside with some
orange paint so he could identify it if it returned to Camp
Baker. Three days later, it was back.
It took Berg two tries
before he once again trapped the husky raccoon. This time he
drove it at least 50 miles away from Camp Baker. The rest
of the summer Camp Baker was raccoon free.
At the end of the summer Berg camped down river. That night
he heard a noise, opened his tent door and shined his flashlight on a large male
raccoon with bright orange paint on his behind.
The moral of the story? It is easier to avoid nurturing a
masked bandit than it is to discourage one after it has taken a liking to you.
Now is the time to clean up any attractants to keep racoons and bears moving
along to find natural sources of food.
For tips on living with
raccoons, bears and other species, go to the FWP web site,
Living With Wildlife page.
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