RePlay: The Real Raccoon Science Behind the Headlines

This is a RePlay of Episode 14 from March 2026...

In this episode Rick discusses the media's misguided headlines and articles about a scientific study on raccoon that looked at domestication signals. Rick offers up information from the published paper and explains what the research actually indicates about raccoon evolution and domestication.

While the idea of having a raccoon as a pet might sound enticing, there are significant challenges and ethical considerations that must be addressed. Raccoons are not domesticated animals; they are wild creatures with specific needs. PLEASE adopt a dog or cat from your local shelter. You will save a life and you will be much happier with truly domesticated animal in your home.

Link to published study mentioned in this episode: 

"Tracking domestication signals across populations of North American raccoons (Procyon lotor) via citizen science-driven image repositories"

Shout out to Big Bear Alpine Zoo (just because)

Big Bear Alpine Zoo website

Big Bear Alpine Zoo in Instagram

Rick's website: ZoologyRick.com

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Music: Positive Carefree Folk Pop

Artist: Burgberg

Used with Full Music Standard Lic.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to one more replay here on Animals Nature and You. That's right. Last episode that came out on Thursday was a replay with Mike Veal, that interview. This is a replay of Ten Minute Tuesday about the raccoons becoming domesticated and the mix-up that kind of occurred between, well, the headlines saying they're your next pet versus the actual scientific study, just showing that there are some physiological changes that are occurring that could be precursors. Well, anyhow, I'll let you listen to the episode. This is from earlier in the season. I recognize we have a lot of new listeners, so it's quite possible you haven't heard this one yet. If you have, still listen if you want. Share it too. It's kind of a fun, it's a fun way to communicate with people how sometimes the headlines about animals and wildlife aren't always aligned with the actual story or facts. So it's an opportunity to maybe help educate some people. With that, before I go and introduce you into this episode or lead you into this episode or whatever I'm trying to do, I want to remind you, please hit follow or subscribe wherever you're listening or watching. We have a lot of really great interviews coming up very soon, whether it's the Dublin Zoo and the conservation work they're doing in Southeast Asia. Uh, I've got a great conversation that I already recorded but will come out later about pet therapy and the importance of that connection between animals and humans. And it's not just dogs and cats. She has other animals that she uses and has great success with. So it's a great story. Uh let's see, there's also what if you're a parent in the zookeeping world, specifically mothers taking care of their own critters at home, their kids, and then also the work uh that happens at the zoo and everything in between. Another really good conversation, and then even further down the line, orangutan conservation, a great conversation about working in the field, in the jungles, taking care of and securing safety for these amazing apes. So I'm gonna stop right there. I'm gonna let you go right into the replay of the original cut of the raccoon 10-minute Tuesday, and then I will come back with a fresh interview in just a couple days on Thursday, after because I'll be back for my vacation. How cool is that! All right, here you go with this episode. You know, I've decided I'm gonna get a pet raccoon. I want a pet raccoon. I am so glad to hear they're becoming domesticated. I can't wait to get one. Where do I sign up? I'm Rick Schwartz, educator, public speaker, and all-around curious guy. Over the years, my curiosity and experiences, along with the many people I've worked with, revealed to me we all have a desire to feel connected to the natural world. You're listening to Animals, Nature and You, a podcast that explores the connection between animals, nature, and humans. A podcast that celebrates learning more, following our curiosity, and reconnecting with the natural world. Welcome to another 10-minute Tuesday here on Animals, Nature and You. And yes, that was my voice saying those things about wanting a pet raccoon. However, those were not my words. I was quoting certain responses that came out near the end of last year. So in October of 2025, a paper came out, a scientific paper came out, discussing the possible shift we're seeing in urban raccoons to becoming closer to a possible domesticated species. Now, if you look at the actual paper, it is it is just one little attribute of many that qualifies for early signs of becoming possible domestic species that they studied and saw, yeah, it actually might be a thing. However, the media took that and made headlines and articles that made it sound like any day now, you're gonna go down to your local pet store and get yourself a pet raccoon. In fact, here's some of the uh the headlines. BBC got it closest, cuter and closer, raccoons may be on their way to becoming America's next pet. Still very misleading, but at least giving that that maybe they're getting closer, but not actually. Then you have Scientific America. City raccoons are evolving to look more like pets. I mean, we're talking about a measurement of the skull that is not enough to make you look at it go, oh, that looks like my cat at home. Smithsonian magazine. Urban raccoons are showing signs of early domestication with shorter snouts than their rural cousins. Also closer, still a little confusing about becoming domesticated. New study suggests urban raccoons are becoming more domesticated. Could they be your next pet? This one actually, Cambridge, a little bit better, Cambridge Day. Raccoons are becoming domestic animals. Uh, that's a bit misleading, but not yet pets. Okay, good, good way to end it, but still a little misleading with that opener. OregonLive.com, a little better, a little better. Human trash drives evolutionary changes in urban raccoons. That is more accurate to the actual study all of the same articles are citing as their source of information. ZME science, city raccoons are domesticating themselves and becoming cuter in the process. Well, that is a completely misleading statement. Raccoons are evolving to be as cute and cuddly as pets, and they want inside your homes. Thank you, New York Post. Yeah, they do want inside your home, so they can ransack it. They're not going to be your next pet, I'm sorry to say. Now, I do have on this computer here where I'm recording, I have the actual scientific paper pulled up. It is something you can find, and I'll actually have it in the links below. It's in Frontiers of Zoology. The title of the scientific paper, tracking domestication signals across populations of North American raccoons via citizen science-driven image repositories. So just that alone. Let's look at what they're actually saying in the scientific paper. They're tracking domestication signals, meaning there are many different things that gives a signal a species might be heading towards early signs of domestication. Not going to be your cat, not going to be your dog. Okay. It's not like they're just going to flip a switch and go, okay, so uh, where's my bed? Where's my snuggly? When do we cuddle? Not going to happen. Also, worth noting, they stite, they cite right here, they're looking at American raccoons via citizen science-driven images. So when you go into the paper here, they're looking at things that people have uploaded to things like iNaturalists as an example. They have a very specific protocol for the angle of the image and also the clarity of the image, so they can do what they need to do to do the study. So let's get into this just a little bit deeper to see what they're looking at and why. So when we talk about domestication, we often think of our dog or cat we have at home, or maybe you have a horse, or you live in an urban or sorry, rural in a area you know about cows, and you look at the wild counterparts. So for dogs, that would be the wolf. For cats, we've landed somewhere in a Middle East African wild cat, is the roots of those genetics. They are very different when you compare one to the other. And then you can look at uh dogs. Look at the German shepherd versus the golden retriever versus chihuahua. They're still all dogs. They're the same species, but they're a different pedigree. So we have done a lot of selective breeding over many, many, many, many years to get certain looks, coat patterns, colorations, and attributes such as their demeanor and their behavior, things of that nature. Different size cats, different lengths of hair, different colorations. A raccoon, what they're looking at here, and this is when you you understand this is the very early stages. Okay. Current domestication animals. This is from the paper here again, and I will have the link down below so you can also look at this. It's actually a really cool study. I just I'm just disappointing the media spun it to be some sort of weird, you can have a raccoon as a pet. Essentially, what they're saying is there are certain traits that animals can share that they refer to as, and it's an umbrella term. In the paper, it says umbrella term domestication syndrome. So morphological changes, so morphological being parts of the body changing, whether it's outside you can see it or something, something inside changes. Okay. So curly tails are an example, floppy ears, depigmentation, meaning the natural wild animal, wild species coat color changes, gets spotted, goes to black and white, uh, has different patterns, different colors, etc. Smaller brains and reduced facial skeleton are commonly cited as some of these traits. So let's think about that. We just listed a handful of things. And I want to actually, you know what, I'm gonna think of this this way. Any one of these things doesn't mean the animal's becoming domesticated. It means it's one of many things they look at. So I love food. I love food, I like cheese. So let's go that route, shall we? Let's say we're trying to determine if something with cheese is pizza, okay? If something with one of these traits is domesticated, okay. You see where I'm going here? Pizza, domestication, cheese, one of the traits. So lasagna has red sauce, has cheese, all sorts of stuff, goes in the oven, a lot like a pizza. But just because it has cheese doesn't mean it's a pizza. Okay. Oven-baked macaroni, right? Have you ever heard macaroni in cheese oven-baked? Oof. Goes in the oven like a pizza. Has cheese like a pizza. Comes out of the oven, not a pizza. Okay. You see where I'm going with this, right? A little bit of uh, oh, eggplant parmesan, red sauce, oven, cheese, not a pizza. So what this particular study was looking at, and they were very clear in this study when they were looking at this, they're looking at the shape. So down in methodology, right here, the criteria they used was to look at images contributed by individual pictures across several different platforms, iNaturalists being one of them, and then to measure, and they had certain criteria then for how they're going to measure if a picture would be one that would be worth worthy of the study. They're looking at snout and skull length measurements. And through this scientific paper that I'm scrolling through right now, it goes into detail exactly what they're looking for, how images were eliminated, why they need to be specific with what they're looking at. They were looking at rural raccoons and urban raccoons. So the idea is that raccoons that live closer in proximity to people, where refuse such as trash and food scraps are available for second hunt for their own, were we going to see any differences? And sure enough, they did. So, right here, right out of the paper in the results area, it says in this study, we examined whether continued environmental exposure to urban environments triggers traits consistent with domestication syndrome. And again, the trait, the one trait, the cheese is what they were looking at. They weren't looking at everything else. We don't know for sure if this is a pizza, but it definitely has cheese. They did, in fact, find that the images that they were looking at, urban raccoons, did show signs of having a shorter snout, which potentially could mean they have the neural changes happening within the skull also. So here's a conclusion to the paper. And again, I have this linked. I want you to look at it, I want you to read it. But the conclusion is probably where the media is like, oh, let's take this little part and make it sound like something is not really. Because the conclusion is very clear. In this paper, we find that raccoons in close contact with densely populated human environments experience a reduction in snout length. Okay, that's it. Period. Done. I mean, they write more here, but there's more. Our data supports the mechanistic pathways of the domestication syndrome outlined in the neural crest domestication syndrome hypothesis and illustrates the potential of a raccoon, sorry, of the raccoon as a new model species to study the effects of early stage domestication processes. Does not say they're becoming domesticated. Does not even imply they're going to become your next pet. We also highlight the importance of considering that selection processes associated with domestication events do not exist in a vacuum, but interact with other environmental selection pressures. So essentially, the scientific paper that is linked in some of these articles, the headlines I read to you earlier, if you take the time to read it, realize that it doesn't support the article at all. The article is just taking and sensationalizing something. And that's what frustrates a lot of scientists, and I think the general public as well. The general public will read what the media is sharing with them and then realize later on no science has changed their mind when actually it's just clarity. Or it's like, well, science never really said what you thought it said. You're getting the unusual version the media gave it. And I get it. Media needs the clicks. They need to try and sensationalize something a little more to get your attention, to get to be a part of it, to get you to engage with it. Doesn't mean it's right. It means that people like myself, who's a wildlife educator or other environmental educators, want you to take the time to understand the bigger picture, not just read the headline. And sometimes you got to go deeper than the article, too. So what now? You wanted a raccoon as a pet. You love raccoons. I love raccoons. I worked with raccoons when I was a keeper. I had two brothers I worked with, and then I had uh another younger female who was someone tried to keep it as a pet, oddly enough, and then it ended up at the zoo. Great animals, super smart, just adorable as all get out. Would never want one in my home. Never, ever, ever. Oh my gosh. Uh uh, I love them. I love them dearly. You'll you'll notice at the end of a lot of my promo videos, I have a little uh raccoon cartoon. They're one of my favorites. I've got on my shirt right now. If you're watching on YouTube, this is my my big bear alpine zoo shirt. They've got raccoons that they've rescued there. This is not affiliated with them. I just a shirt I got when I was there visiting them. They're in Big Bear, California. They do a lot of work with native wildlife. If you're in the area, go support them. They're pretty awesome. So, what do you do? What do you do? Well, you're gonna go to the shelter and you're gonna find a dog or a cat and you're gonna adopt it and you're gonna name it raccoon. And then you get to officially have a raccoon as a pet. That's your best bet. I've got a cat named Panda. I mean, that's it works for me. You don't want a raccoon. If you want to support raccoons, if you really love raccoons, work with your local government, your city, your county, your state to help create wildlife corridors and safe spaces for these animals to travel between the urban areas we've set up for them. They have adapted very well. There are cities, there are raccoons living in the middle of Manhattan. I've seen them. It's pretty impressive. If you want to really share your love with them, support wildlife corridors, though, in any and all areas, including your own local area. All right, it is already past time to wrap up this episode, and you know what to do. If you haven't already, please subscribe or follow this podcast wherever you might be listening or watching, because I don't want you to miss the upcoming episodes. Of course, every Tuesday we have 10-minute Tuesdays, episodes like this, and then every Thursday I'm interviewing a new awesome person doing some awesome work. And it's great to have these guests on here and share their work, their passion, their love with you so we all get to learn a little bit more. Last call to action, don't forget, go to your local shelter, adopt a dog or a cat. They're gonna be the best pet ever. And if you want to, name it raccoon and you can say you have a raccoon as a pet. All right, everyone. I appreciate you being here. I thank you so very much for all the support everyone's been giving to the podcast. Have a good one, everybody.