Species-Specific Management (SSM)

Raccoon

The raccoon is an invaluable part of the region's wildlife resource. It is valued for hunting, trapping, nature study, and it must occasionally be controlled where doing damage. It has great ecological, environmental, economic, and esthetic importance. Because conflicting views exist about how it should be increased (e.g., for hunting) or reduced (e.g., for reducing farming damage or its role in rabies outbreaks), the best scientific knowledge is needed to help make the tradeoffs. Research is needed. However, much information is available and needs synthesis.

Nevertheless, there are many things the forest manager can do to work with raccoons, recognizing that it is an animal with both plus and minus values.

1. Food and hiding places are of importance - but cover is in first place. You need to provide plenty of space (a small woodlot will rarely sustain a population). You need to have at least 100 acres of woodland where plenty of other requirements are being met.
2. There must be denning places (not marginal ones) such as large hollow trees with thick sides to the chamber, deep well-developed ground cavities (secure groundhog (woodchuck) burrows), deep and dry rock ledges, and large down trees or large tree tops. Flimsy brush piles or loose tree tops will not work for you.
3. The favorite den trees are:

   red maple, elm, red and black oak, butternut, white oak, white ash, sugar maple, sycamore

   but raccoons are not particular. A large dry chamber, with good insulation, and a small protected entrance are the quality conditions.

4. In many areas, all large trees that might become den trees have been removed. (An average den tree has more than a 23 inch diameter.) There are almost no suitable tree denning sites. In such areas, den or nest boxes can be put up. Put them up no more than 150 feet from a pond or stream. Put them along streams and more than 300 yards apart. (With one near the center of each 27 acres, or 1/9 square kilometer, the boxes are about 1100 feet apart.) Three dens (natural or otherwise) per 27 acres or 1 per 9 acres is what is needed for stabilizing a raccoon population. Do not bother putting up any box over a mile (5280 ft.) from permanent water.
5. Protect your animals from:
   • ground fires (that destroy logs and some food supplies)
   • grazing (that removes fruiting shrubs, acorns, and grapes)
   • disturbance from free ranging dogs
   • polluted waters (even in the uplands near farms or logging there can be real cause for alarm)

6. Leave large snags in the forest. You need at least 2 to 3 per acre.
7. Fire protection is well known, but the emphasis should not be on animals "burned up"; rather, denning places destroyed and food as well as the "food pantry" being destroyed should be the concern. Fire lines, trails, signs, wood-closure, limiting smoking, and limiting camping and hunter-fires are all ways to reduce fire.
8. Protect all streams in your area. Leave uncut all trees (at least all large ones of good form within 50 feet of streams) even the intermittent ones. The streams provide most of the raccoons' food in some part of the year.
9. The managerial trick is to provide year-around food. Most areas do not; there are blank periods. Those blank or low periods are enough to prevent success in achieving desired population densities.
10. Raccoons eat whatever they run into. They are omnivorous and opportunistic. A variety of foods serve them well. This explains why they do well in areas with very different food conditions. It also emphasizes one point ... dens are more important than food.
11. Complications exist ... There often is a critical food supply period! They have what in business is known as a cash-flow problem. Even with dens and diverse food, they must have abundant high-energy food in late summer and early fall to allow them to go into the winter in a healthy condition and for the females to bring off numerous healthy young in spring.
12. Manage to increase mice, moles, and shrews. These are important food items.
13. Put large logs or chunks of top stems across the streams (not the top branches). Build a stair-case pattern in all streams. This will help produce the insects, snails, frogs, salamanders (spring lizards) and crayfish (crawdads) that the raccoons need.
14. Put large limestone gravel in well-designed stream fords. This limestone will improve most crossings, but the water running over it will become more fertile (in most areas) and increase the insects, crayfish, etc.
15. Dump a truck load of manure in a swampy spot. The earthworms will become an important food supply.
16. Encourage fruiting shrubs by
    • group selection harvests
    • single-tree selection harvests
    • frilling large trees of poor form, creating a snag with a sunlit area underneath it
17. Realize that raccoon populations are limited by soil fertility. In very poor areas, there is no way to get a very rich population. Fertility can be increased in small, select feeding areas, and results will be evident if other needs are met. It is wise to face the facts of fertility, not become frustrated.
18. Encourage fruiting shrubs and vines by opening them to sunlight, throwing fertilizer on them, and transplanting them. The important ones for raccoons are:

    dogwood, elderberry, hollies, blueberries, viburnum, raspberries, huckleberries, pokeberries, hawthorn, blackberries, grape, hackberries, greenbriar, honeysuckle

19. Encourage fruiting trees such as:

    persimmon, blackgum, cherry, crabapple, service berry, sassafras, apples (in old homesites or openings)

20. Encourage the nut producers (hard mast) trees such as:

    oaks, chestnuts(Chinese or hybrids in openings), walnuts, hickories

21. Corn and apples are favorite foods. Forest openings with these can yield high return per dollar invested.
22. Build a shallow pond with gently sloping sides to increase food for raccoons.
23. Raccoons rarely live to be over 10 years old. You cannot "stockpile" them.
24. Put out 10-20 scent posts with 40 pounds of fine sand smoothed out around each one. Look for raccoon tracks. Keep a count of tracks in a set period each year. Follow the population trends.
25. Follow the game laws on harvests. You can usually take 1/2 the population and still have the same number next-year in a good area (as suggested above). Densities average 1 per 13 acres so in a 1000 acre tract you might allow a harvest of 38 animals in an average year. Over 300,000 raccoons are taken by Virginia hunters each year.
26. If you handle raccoons, get a rabies vaccination. The shots are cheap, painless insurance. There is a real danger, but a modern solution is available.
27. Use the meat of raccoons captured (recipes may become available).
28. Take care of the hides. You can increase their value by 20% easily in most cases. Local schools may be available. A management technique is to sponsor such a school.
29. Learn effective trapping techniques.
30. Sell your hides for fair market prices.
31. Lease hunting and trapping rights to parts of your land to allow full returns from your forest investments. (Information is available.)
32. Participate in organized raccoon hunt and hound organizations.
33. Participate by action or contribution to raccoon research at Virginia Tech.
34. Do not advocate (and block all efforts) to stock raccoons. Do not waste money, introduce disease, encourage unlawful practices elsewhere, or detract from the hard work ahead to create wonderful forests with wonderful raccoon populations.
35. Consider guiding groups (for a fee) on evening raccoon hunts or just to see and photograph one in a tree.
36. Consider creating a feeding area where people can come to observe them.
37. Consider creating a special dog training area.
38. Be prepared to work with local people who experience crop or garden damage, raids on poultry, or trouble with garbage cans, etc.
39. Develop a rabies-related or disease-related surveilance project with the state health units.

Dr. Sam Zeveloff, Chair, Department of Zoology, Weber State University, Ogden, UT 84408-2505,U.S.A., tel.: 801 626-6655, fax: 801 626-7445, email: szeveloff@weber.edu is starting evolotion studies of the Procyoniidae (August, 2002 ... potential contact)

See also "A Natural History of Raccoons" by Dorcas MacClintock, http://www.blackburnpress.com/wilbiolandma.html

Robert H. Giles, Jr.

This Web site is maintained by R. H. Giles, Jr.
Last revision January 17, 2000.