What Do Raccoons Eat? Raccoon Diet in the Wild and in Towns

A typical raccoon diet

Raccoons are opportunists rather than specialist hunters. Instead of chasing fast prey, they wander slowly along streams, woodland floors and field edges, feeling and sniffing for food that is easy to grab. One raccoon expert, Samuel Zeveloff, has suggested the raccoon may be one of the most omnivorous animals in the world.

These figures are averages from studies across North America. A raccoon living beside a salt marsh may eat mostly crabs, while one in a Midwest cornfield may eat mostly corn in late summer. When food is plentiful, individual raccoons can also develop strong personal favorites.

How the raccoon diet changes through the year

Raccoon food follows the seasons.

• Spring and early summer: Animal food dominates. Raccoons eat beetles, caterpillars, grubs, earthworms, snails, crayfish, tadpoles and frogs, and they raid the nests of ground-nesting birds, ducks and turtles for eggs.
• Late summer and autumn: Raccoons switch to fruit and nuts. Berries, wild grapes, cherries, apples, persimmons, acorns, beechnuts and walnuts are rich in sugar and fat. Corn in its soft, milky stage is a particular favorite; in one two-year study in Indiana, raccoons caused most of the wildlife damage to corn plants.
• Winter: In the south, raccoons keep foraging. In the north they rely on fat stored in autumn, which can almost double their spring weight, and they sleep in dens through deep snow, coming out on milder nights.

How raccoons find their food

The raccoon’s secret weapon is its front paws. These five-fingered “hands” are extremely sensitive, and a large part of the raccoon’s brain is devoted to the sense of touch. Raccoons often look away while their fingers search under stones, in mud or in shallow water, feeling for crayfish, snails and frogs.

When a raccoon picks food out of the water and rubs it between its paws, it looks as if it is washing it. In fact, the rubbing helps the raccoon feel and examine the food, and wet paws may be even more sensitive. The story behind the name lotor, Latin for “washer”, is explained in why do raccoons wash their food?

Raccoons also use their good hearing to locate insects and worms moving under leaves, and their sense of smell to find fruit, carrion and buried turtle eggs. Most foraging happens at night.

What raccoons eat in towns and cities

City and suburban raccoons, nicknamed “trash pandas”, eat a lot of human food. Garbage cans, compost heaps, fallen garden fruit, bird feeders, pet food left outdoors and fish ponds all provide easy meals. Their nimble paws and problem-solving skills let them lift lids, unhook latches and tear open bags.

Easy food lets raccoons live at much higher densities in cities than in the wild. In the German city of Kassel, where raccoons were introduced, there are about 50 to 150 per square kilometer. Wildlife agencies in North America and Europe advise people never to feed raccoons on purpose, because fed raccoons lose their fear of people, gather in large numbers and can spread disease to each other. Raccoon intelligence in towns is covered in how smart are raccoons?

Do raccoons harm other wildlife?

Because raccoons eat eggs and nestlings, high raccoon numbers can be a problem for some vulnerable species. They are well-known predators of turtle nests, including those of sea turtles on some beaches in the southeastern United States, and of ground-nesting and marsh birds. In some conservation projects, nests are protected with cages or relocated to reduce losses.

Outside their native range, raccoons are an invasive species. In Europe and Japan, researchers are studying their impact on amphibians, turtles and nesting birds; some local studies show heavy predation, while the overall effect is still debated. Read more in are there raccoons in Europe?

Myths and facts about raccoon food

• Myth: Raccoons mostly hunt large animals. Raccoons only occasionally catch active or larger prey such as adult birds and mammals. They prefer slow, easy food: crayfish, insects, frogs, eggs and fruit.
• Myth: Raccoons wash their food to clean it. Wild raccoons rub food to feel it, not to clean it, and they have been seen eating food without any “washing” at all.
• Fact: Raccoons eat a lot of corn. Sweet corn in its milky stage is one of their best-loved crops, and raccoons are a major cause of wildlife damage in cornfields.
• Fact: Raccoons eat carrion. They will feed on dead fish washed up on shore and other animal remains, which makes them useful scavengers.

For the full picture of the animal behind the appetite, see the raccoon profile.