Alberta has the bighorn sheep. Manitoba has the plains bison. Yukon has the raven. So what’s Ontario’s official animal?
We don’t have one — yet.
The loon is our official bird, but we can’t help but think that Ontario’s other furry and feathery (and slippery and leathery) denizens haven’t been given a chance to compete.
That’s why, over the next eight weeks, TVO.org will be giving 16 Ontario animals their turn in the spotlight. You’ll learn about how they live, what threats they’re facing, and how they reflect the province’s character. At the end of the series, you’ll get the chance to make your voice heard — and to vote for your favourite critter.
The winner may not end up on a flag or a coat of arms. But they’ll get a fancy title: Ontario’s unofficial official animal.
Click here for complete voting information, including matchup schedules.
Dictionnaire universel d'histoire naturelle, 1847-9. (Biodiversity Heritage Library/Flickr)
Species/scientific name: Procyon lotor
Adult size: Between 58 centimetres (23 inches) and 97 centimetres (38 inches) nose to tail. Males are generally about 25 per cent larger than females
Adult weight: Grown-up raccoons can be between four and eight kilograms (8.8-17.6 pounds). In fall, when they chonk up for winter, however, raccoons have been documented reaching weights higher than 25 kilograms (55 pounds)
Longevity: About three to five years in the wild. Raccoons in captivity regularly live into their teens
Feeding and diet: Raccoons are omnivorous scavengers, which means it would probably be easier to list the foods they won’t eat. In the wild, however, raccoons seek out crayfish, rodents like muskrats and squirrels, fruits (especially sweet corn) and nuts, and frogs, small fish, and insects
Predators: Humans are the main predator of the raccoon, hunting them for their pelts. Raccoons are the only animals permitted to be night-hunted in Ontario. Coyotes and other canids also eat raccoons, but this doesn’t have a significant impact on the population.
Threats: Automobiles, diseases like rabies and canine distemper, over-habituation to humans
Habitat: Raccoons are pretty flexible, but they need a place with food and water and a protected area for denning
Range: Procyon lotor, the northern raccoon, is found throughout Canada, with the exception of Newfoundland and Labrador
Conservation status in Ontario: The IUCN classifies the northern raccoon as a species of least concern. It hasn’t been analyzed by COSSARO, Ontario’s species-at-risk registry, but with as many as 13.6 raccoons per square kilometre in southern Ontario, it seems that the critter is doing fine
(Don Denton/CP)
Zoe Fitzgerald’s roommate in Toronto left a window open, and that was all the invitation the masked marauders needed. No major damage was done, says the Ontario Science Centre researcher-programmer — but she and her roommate discovered that the toilet was full of crumbs. The invaders were raccoons: “They were washing their food,” she says.
Washing food in the toilet. Exploring roofs, garages, cranes, and even doughnut shops. Hacking your compost bin. Raccoons are near-ubiquitous in inhabited Ontario, and most residents have had at least a few close encounters of the furred kind.
National Geographic Animals: How smart are raccoons?
“Because they’ve learned to adapt to humans and figure out how we store our food, they live almost anywhere they can,” says Courtney Coons (no relation), a keeper in the Toronto Zoo’s Canadian Domain who regularly works with the three raccoons held there. (All three were rescued as pups and became too habituated to humans to be released into the wild, she says.)
But their proximity to — and therefore familiarity with — humans isn’t the real reason that the raccoon should be Ontario’s unofficial official animal. These crepuscular critters deserve the top honour because they’re great at rolling with the punches. No nearby stream? No problem. A porcelain throne is at hand. Can’t get your grabby little five-fingered hands on any tasty crayfish? There’s a green bin full of goodies right there.
Wild fact: Raccoons are one of the few species that actually does far better, in terms of population numbers, with people around.
It would be a mistake to think of raccoons as invaders, however — even if scattered trash or the thumping of little feet in your attic could make them seem that way. “Raccoons were here first,” says Suzanne MacDonald, a professor of psychology and biology at York University who has spent a lot of time over the past decade studying the smart, resilient animals.
Urban Ontario rose up around its raccoon denizens, she says: the fact that they have survived and thrived in the city, unlike so many creatures that humans have driven to local extinction, is one reason they should be treasured. Think of raccoons the way you would any other overtired city-dweller: “They’re just trying to make a living,” she says.
(Gary J. Wood/Flickr)
When MacDonald started studying raccoons, she found there was little scientific information about how they lived in cities. (Fitzgerald notes that there’s even less about how raccoons live in the wild.) To study primate species, she has to travel the world. For raccoon-focused research, she didn’t even have to get on a plane — she just needed to take a trip to her Toronto backyard.
What she and other researchers have since found is that, while populations of rural raccoons live at a much lower density and have sizable territories, urban raccoons live their whole lives in a small area about the size of three city blocks. They don’t cross major traffic arteries. Oh, and they’re smart — much smarter than their wild counterparts.
Raccoon demonstrates problem-solving skills
Fitzgerald says that intelligence is likely driven by their demanding environment, which has many risks but also many rewards in terms of steady food. (The ills of modern diets have caught up with them, too, though: some raccoons who live in cities show evidence of high blood sugar.) “They have really been able to exploit the food that we discard,” she says.
Whether rural or urban, these wild animals have a regular lifecycle. Raccoons breed in the spring, and females bear one litter of around two to four pups that will stay with her for months. Throughout the summer and fall, they move around their territory, scavenging food and denning in up to 10 separate sites during the days. As winter approaches, raccoons put on as much weight as possible and get ready to dig in. According to Fitzgerald, they don’t exactly hibernate — it’s more like they snooze through the coldest days and make outings to snack on milder days.
“Originally, raccoons were mostly nocturnal,” says Coons. “These days, we like to think of them more as opportunists.” If you see a raccoon during the day, it probably just knows that the local restaurant puts out its garbage around that time or that another ready food source has become available.
David Attenborough Discusses Raccoons | Life Of Mammals | BBC Earth
Their nocturnal past is the likely genesis of the oh-so-cute “washing” behaviour that has made so many social-media headlines. Raccoons dip the majority of their food in water, but they’re not trying to get it clean. Their very sensitive hands become even more sensitive in water, and feeling food is their primary way of figuring out whether it’s safe to eat.
Other things that make the raccoon adorable have also evolved with a purpose. The black mask makes seeing in the dark easier. The striped tail likely helps with camouflage — something they use in urban environments as much as if not more so than in rural ones. “They’re there,” says MacDonald. “We just don’t know that they’re there.”
Smart, sassy, stripey, sneaky: What’s not to love about the raccoon?
This series is produced with the assistance of Ontario Nature.