The Grid, a fantastic free weekly newspaper in Toronto, recently did a cover story on raccoons called Midnight Marauders. In the article, The Grid called Toronto the raccoon capital of the world. I don’t know much about that, but I do know I that at my residence in Roncesvalles, just a few blocks from High Park, I not only only see, but interact with raccoons on a daily basis. These photos were all taken from my balcony. In these photos, there are times I am less than four feet away from each of the baby raccoons.
It’s not too hard to tell there is a bit of a story with this photos. The story goes, my wife pointed out that there was a mother raccoon nursing some babies on the balcony below us (top photo). As I started taking photos and a video (below), the baby raccoons got a little scared and ran to their “safe place” which happened to be directly below our deck. As a result, these photos are of a bunch of scared baby raccoons running to the person they are scared of (me), rather than away. Slightly hilarious. I can tell you though, no raccoons were harmed in the shooting of these photos or video. At some point they just freeze, frightened, and I walk away to let them return to their safe place below our deck.
Below is a video of an exhausted mother raccoon nursing four baby raccoons.
As much of a nuisance as they are (they get into our garbage weekly), I have to say, they really are the most adorable things. I think it’s a shame we can’t domesticate them, I mean, my dog is cute too, and not much less a menace.
