New study shows urban raccoons are becoming more domesticated. Could they become pets one day?

When most people think of raccoons, they imagine city dwellers. The medium-sized furry animals with distinctive, mask-like markings and ringed tails are notorious for emerging from garbage cans after dusk.

But Ra by natureCocoons are not urban creatures. They come from forests and woodlands, where their omnivorous diet includes corn, nuts and berries, as well as insects, clams and fish.

They are also native to the Americas, and are found in every Canadian province except Newfoundland and Labrador, although sightings it has been reported theerEh, too.

“They’re like little mysteries,” said Christina Sluka, an ecology PhD graduate student at the University of Wyoming.

“We don’t really know a lot about how they are adapting to urban habitats,” Sluka said. the currentHost Matt Galloway.

In a recent study Researchers at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock found that raccoons aren’t just changing their diet. To capitalize on human leftover food – City life is gradually domesticating them. And the evidence may be on their completely innocent faces.

What does it mean to have a raccoon as a pet?

Domestication is a long-term process during which a wild animall is slowly advertisingThe habit of living in close association with humans for food, labor, or companionship.

Our common domesticated animals, like dogs, are very different from their wild ancestors, Sluka said.

The process of domesticating dogs began “about 30,000 to 15,000 years ago,” she says.

Thus, raccoon domestication is in the “very, very early” stages, Sluka says. Who was not included in the study.

in study, Published in the journal Frontiers in Zoology, LeAdvertisement Writer Raffaella Lesch and her team analyzed nearly 20,000 photos of raccoons from across the United States, all of which were submitted to a community science forum.

The researchers found that raccoons living in densely populated urban areas show physical changes – specifically, shorter snouts. The study recorded “a 3.56 percent reduction in snout motion between rural to urban raccoons.”

Biologists have discovered so many animals Follow a similar evolutionary pattern, where they developed traits such as a shorter snout, less ear cartilage, loss of coat pigmentation, and a dampened fear response – all of which increased their chances of surviving near humans.

Sluka’s work is similar to Lesch’s. she loThe museum holds specimens of raccoons collected in the 1880s to study how the shapes of their skulls changed as cities expanded.

She found that “some of their teeth are actually getting smaller compared to a lot of urban people around.”

Albrecht Schulte-Hostede is professor of biology and evolutionary ecology at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario. Too was not involved in the study, said these changes align an idea known as doMastication syndrome – “a collection of symptoms that change when (animals) live around humans.”

Physically, he says, urban raccoons exhibit something called neoteny, meaning they retain juvenile characteristics into adulthood, while behaviorally, they become more tolerant of humans.

Sluka says these findings are notable because domestication is generally believed to begin with humans capturing animals and selectively breeding them. In Case of the Urban Raccoon, HHowever, the process appears to it has begun mlong ago, and Just by being close to people.

“Interestingly, what this means is that we, as humans, even by existing on the landscape, are having a very profound impact on the wildlife around us,” Sluka said.

“Just our presence is working some natural selection pressure on these wildlife that is pushing them towards survival (A) BHe is fit to live with us.”

What will the raccoons of the future be like?

When Sarah Thyme and her husband found a baby raccoon near its mother who had been hit by a car, they decided to bring the orphan home.

That raccoon named Cheeto is now one of threee raccoon american coupleAs a pet ep.

In Canada, keeping wild native or exotic animals is generally prohibited under provincial or territorial laws, unless the owner has obtained a special permit.

“Sadly, all of our raccoons were orphaned for one reason or another and we brought them in so they could have a chance to live a beautiful life,” said Thyme, who lives in South Carolina, where no special permits were required.

Although Thyme shares very captivating pictures and videos their raccoon onlineHe said he is not encouraging others to adopt them.

“For most people, raccoons would be a poor choice because they are very high-maintenance animals,” Thyme said.

Schulte-Hoested also warns against bringing wild raccoons into the home because they can carry a variety of pathogens and parasites — including raccoon roundworm, canine distemper and rabies — that pose serious health risks.

“This is why I’ll never go near a raccoon, He said.

Sluka agrees, and says it may be a long time before we can call these animals our pets.

“We are so early in the process that people certainly won’t be able to fully domesticate raccoons any time soon,” he said.

Nevertheless, both scientists they say aAgain, they are intrigued by what they are seeing.

Schulte-Hostedt says urban raccoons “may be in the early stages of some kind of evolutionary change that is consistent with domestication.”

“If you fast forward a thousand years, and if cities are still around, you’ll find that urban raccoons will look very different,” he said.