![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2e00f3c25492e46a5c0ac9a11ffe557f.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nA trap meant for a feral cat ended up holding a very different guest: a well-fed raccoon that the Reddit poster estimated weighed around 30 pounds.<\/p>\n
The raccoon appeared offended by the body-shaming from his captor, but overall, his predicament ended better than most of his cousins who find their way into traps: “He was given stuff to rehydrate and released.”<\/p>\n
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Photo Credit: Reddit <\/p>\n
In a Reddit post<\/a> that drew 5,400 upvotes, the original poster shared a photo of a live trap containing an unusually large raccoon that had apparently been helping itself to bait left out on the property.<\/p>\n The poster said the trap had been set for a feral cat, not the raccoon, and added that the animal was handled humanely before being released.<\/p>\n “In all my years of trapping I’ve never had an animal go back into the trap while I was holding the door open to get the food he dropped.”<\/p>\n The raccoon’s greed got him caught in a precarious predicament, but this situation does shed light on a growing issue. Human activity can push wildlife into unhealthy habits.<\/p>\n Raccoons are highly adaptable, and when high-calorie food is easy to find, from trash cans, pet bowls, bird feeders, bait, and other outdoor food sources, they can gain excessive weight and grow more reliant on people.<\/p>\n Wildlife in poor health may face greater risks from disease, traffic, and injury, while neighborhoods may have to contend with overturned trash and property damage.<\/p>\n Experts have long warned that when wild animals become accustomed to human food, their behavior can shift in ways that put everyone at risk.<\/p>\n One user joked: “His greed sickens me.” Another said, “He might be my spirit animal.”<\/p>\n Animals generally do not reach this size in the wild without regular access to easy, human-linked food sources. You can help by securing garbage, bringing pet food indoors, and using nonlethal deterrents.<\/p>\n Get TCD’s free newsletters<\/a> for easy tips, smart advice, and a chance to earn $5,000 toward home upgrades. To see more stories like this one, change your Google preferences here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A trap meant for a feral cat ended up holding a very different guest: a well-fed raccoon that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,259233,2998,15437,2522,66,323],"class_list":["post-715619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-feral-cat","tag-food","tag-raccoon","tag-reddit","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715619","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=715619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}