{"id":298002,"date":"2025-11-21T18:27:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T18:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/298002\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T18:27:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T18:27:11","slug":"cuter-and-closer-raccoons-may-be-on-their-way-to-becoming-americas-next-pet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/298002\/","title":{"rendered":"Cuter and closer: Raccoons may be on their way to becoming America’s next pet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Raccoons may be inching closer to becoming America’s next pet.<\/p>\n

Affectionately referred to as trash pandas, the masked mammals known for rummaging rubbish bins for easy food, are evolving based on their proximity to humans, even starting to look cuter, a new study says.<\/p>\n

Evaluation of nearly 20,000 photos found “a clear reduction in snout length” in urban raccoons compared to their rural cousins – a physical shift consistent with the early stages of domestication seen in cats and dogs.<\/p>\n

Some that have been adopted as pets have become TikTok celebrities. One particularly bold dumpster-diver even sprinted across the pitch<\/a> during a Major League Soccer match in Philadelphia last year.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

[Kyle Ross \/ USA TODAY Sports]<\/p>\n

The stripe-tailed mammals, also nicknamed “backyard bandits”, are widespread across the contiguous US.<\/p>\n

Their ability to thrive in both wild and urban settings has left them occupying an unusual space in American life – beloved pet in some neighbourhoods, persistent pest in others.<\/p>\n

The proximity to humans could signal that the creatures are growing more comfortable around us, or, scientifically speaking, dampening their innate flight responses, according to the study<\/a> published in the journal Frontiers in Zoology.<\/p>\n

The softening of their features could be due to shifts in their fight-or-flight response on the cellular level, it says.<\/p>\n

This urban domestication starts with trash, the study’s co-author, Raffaela Lesch of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, told Scientific American.<\/a><\/p>\n

“Trash is really the kickstarter,” she said. “Wherever humans go, there’s trash \u2014 and animals love our trash.”<\/p>\n

But to take advantage of this endless buffet, wildlife must strike a delicate balance: bold enough to root through bins and navigate human environments, yet not so bold as to pose a threat.<\/p>\n

“If you have an animal that lives close to humans, you have to be well-behaved enough,” Lesch said. “That selection pressure is quite intense.”<\/p>\n

The finding, the authors said, is consistent with the “domestication syndrome phenotype”.<\/p>\n

Domestication syndrome – anatomical and morphological changes such as curly tails, floppy ears, depigmentation, smaller brains and reduced facial skeletons – are commonly cited as some of the most salient traits, the study says.<\/p>\n

Those traits are also seen among more common household pets, such as dogs that evolved from wolves.<\/p>\n

The study’s authors also hypothesised that the domestication process is wrongly believed to be initiated by humans, who have captured or selectively bred animals in the past.<\/p>\n

The process might actually begin much earlier than previously thought, they said, notably when animals became habituated to human environments.<\/p>\n

“Only animals with dampened flight (or fight) responses would succeed best,” the authors wrote. “This makes the initial stages of the domestication process a process of pure natural selection.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Raccoons may be inching closer to becoming America’s next pet. Affectionately referred to as trash pandas, the masked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,133989,126565,133991,66,133990,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-298002","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-domestication-syndrome","11":"tag-raffaela-lesch","12":"tag-rubbish-bins","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-trash-pandas","15":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}