Welcome to Toronto, World Capital of the Urban Raccoon

In an excerpt from his book, Our Wild Familiars: How Animals Are Adapting to Cities and Reshaping the Natural World, Dan Werb makes the case that raccoons—brushed off by most people as pests—are intelligent and adaptable animals. Werb shows how raccoons thrive in cities like Toronto, learning and unlearning habits as they navigate different microenvironments. A delightful read, full of Werb’s eye for scene and character.

When I ask Gordon about raccoons, he sighs. “I’ll see ten dead raccoons on the way to a job,” he says, “practically every day.” It obviously hurts. Gordon respects the animals’ capacity to solve whatever puzzle they encounter, but it’s their vibe that he appreciates more than anything else. “When I trap a squirrel,” he says, “the energy is insane. They’ll bang their head against the bars of a cage for hours until the fur is completely stripped and their head is bloody. I ride around with them screaming at me from the back of the van.” Raccoons are different. “When I catch a raccoon,” he says, “ninety-five percent of the time, it looks like a teenager that’s been busted for smoking pot: just kind of aware of what they’ve done and accepting the consequences.” He laughs softly. “It’s not like they high-five you on the way out, but they’re so bashful and calm.”