We don’t normally think of raccoons as the smartest of creatures, but apparently they’ve been doing some pretty amazing things up in Canada. Raccoons have been the featured news story many times this past year in Toronto. They’ve made headlines so many times, people really have begun to wonder if they are getting smarter. Those Canadian raccoons certainly seem to be making waves, particularly in regards to new “raccoon-resistant” green trash bins.
Toronto seems to have and endless fascination with raccoons. Recently, new green “raccoon-resistant” trash bins were installed all over the city, but it seems these raccoons are just too smart for city officials. These new “raccoon-resistant” trash bins are fitted with a new turning-lock mechanism that is supposed to be easy for humans to open, but impossible for raccoons to open with their hands. Unfortunately, they are apparently not so impossible for these hungry critters to get past this mechanism. A video was posted in April showing a raccoon breaking into one of these new trash bins in under 30 seconds.
When Amy Dempsey, a journalist for the Toronto Star, began to notice the trash bins throughout her entire neighborhood were getting routinely raided by raccoons, despite the new supposedly resistant green bins, she decided to investigate further and get to the bottom of this mystery. This investigating ended up lasting for an entire month. Raccoon expert Suzanne MacDonald helped Dempsey in her investigation, setting up cameras in the around Dempsey’s house to try and catch the little bandits in action. They caught one mother raccoon opening the bin by simply yanking on the lock until popped open, a task that took her only nine seconds. Dempsey then tried using a brand new bin to make sure it wasn’t just hers that were malfunctioning, but that one was also raided by said raccoon confidently popping the lock open with one spin of its paws. Officials were embarrassed and claimed that there was nothing wrong with the bins. Apparently, Dempsey’s raccoon was just a genius.
Have you ever seen a raccoon do something that you would have thought impossible for them to accomplish?
