A unit of Lasting Forests Sustained forests; sustained profits evolving since March 30, 1999

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

Objectives are, as always, difficult to specify.

         P  I   T
Q* =    DV

where P is the populations of people with their different concepts of the resource; I is the total list of objectives, and T is the years in the planning period, e.g., 50. D is the number of units (e.g., hides, chases, sightings) demanded and V is the relative value of each unit.

subject to a set of constraints such as:
a = available funds
b = available staff
c = available equipment
d = available quality area (q x d)
q = quality of habitat

and where i's are:

1. Minimize estimated crop loss (corn, etc.) to less than 4% of regional median production of corn over the past 4 years.
2. Minimize reported poultry loss to less than 20% of 4-year maximum reported number of situations
3. Minimize reported raccoon rabies cases
4. Maximize raccoon acres under official management
5. Maximize animals trapped
6. Maximize total sale value of hides in the area
7. Maximize profit from raccoon trapping
8. Maximize profit from guiding
9. Maximize total reported raccoon-dog sale value
10. Maximize reported quality of the animal hunt
11. Maximize raccoon club membership
12. Maximize reported raccoon flesh consumption.

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 (in order of preference) are:

• red maple
• elm
• white oak
• black oak
• sugar maple
• white ash
• butternut
• sycamore

4. In many areas, all large trees that might become den trees have been removed. (An average den tree has more than 23 inches diameter.) There are almost no suitable denning sites. In such areas, den or nest boxes can be put up in young forest if abundant raccoons are desired. Put them up no more than 150 feet from a pond or stream. There is no good way to estimate the number needed per acre. 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).

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, forest closure, limited smoking, limited camping and other 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 parts of the year.

9. The managerial trick is to provide year-round food. Most areas do not; there are blank periods. That gap in available food is enough to prevent success.

10. Raccoons eat whatever they run into. They are omnivorous. A variety of foods serve them well. This explains why they do well in areas with very different food conditions. It also emphasizes the point that dens are more important than food.

11. Complications exist...The critical food supply period! (See #7 above.) 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 in the streams at a right angle to the flow (not the top branches). Build a stair-case pattern in all streams. This will help produce the insects, snails, frogs, salamanders 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 farm manure in a swampy spot. The earthworms will become an important food supply.

16. Encourage fruiting shrubs by

• group selection harvests
• single-tree selection
• frilling large trees of poor form, creating a snag with a sunlit area underneath it.

18. Encourage fruiting shrubs and vines by opening them to sunlight, throwing fertilizer on them, and transplanting them. Sunlight is needed for sugar production in fruits. The important species for raccoons are dogwood, elderberry, viburnum, raspberries, hawthorn, blackberries, hollies, blueberries and huckleberries, pokeberries, grape, hackberries , greenbriar, honeysuckle

19. Encourage fruiting trees such as persimmon, apples (in old homesites or openings), serviceberry, crabapple, cherry, blackgum, sassafras

20. Encourage the nut producers (hard mast) trees such as oaks, hickories, walnuts , chestnuts (Chinese or hybrids in openings)

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 scent posts with 1/3 bag of agricultural lime 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.

27. Use the meat of raccoons captured. (Make recipes available to newspapers and in handouts.)

28. Take care of the hides. You can increase their value by 20% easily in most cases. Provide proper schools.

29. Use effective trapping techniques. Provide trapper schools and inspect trap lines for proper trapping.

30. See that hides are sold for fair market prices. Consider storage; group sales; competitive hiding. Contact a marketing specialist.

31. Lease hunting and trapping rights to parts of your land to allow full returns from your forest investments.

32. Participate in organized raccoon hunt and hound organizations.

33. Participate by action or contribution to raccoon research.

34. Do not advocate and simultaneously 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 of people (for a fee) on raccoon hunts or take groups to see one in a tree. Night hunts, catered, with other entertainment can be a profitable activity.

36. Consider creating a feeding area where people can come to observe them.

37. Consider creating a special raccoon-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. Report on the positive and negative relations to other fauna of an intensive raccoon system management effort.

40. Sponsor a conference or committee considering the future of the raccoon resource and make adjustments in the above suggestions based on views of the future differences.

Part of the reasons for the above list of 40 items is to suggest what a total species-specific system means, to allow students to see all parts of the general system theory (objectives, inputs, etc.) being called into play, and to move past generalizations and theory to be very specific about what to do in the field.

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