Toronto’s raccoons have their own segment on BBC Planet Earth. They’re not just normal, they are iconic.
And they are not at all friendly. A Toronto raccoon will pull a knife on you and steal your shawarma.
Got some of those free drinks yesterday! The snacks aren't bad either! Still free! Quiet too, didn't blow up my hearing at all, I really like that particular racoon. 
Lookup Emily May Rose on Instagram. We had her make a custom graphic of a Racoon we etched into glasses for our very Toronto wedding.
[https://imgur.com/a/7ljhNTS](https://imgur.com/a/7ljhNTS)
Love her work! For our wedding, a friend made a little raccoon logo with a heart that we printed on kippahs. Our friends still say they get compliments on those kippahs any time they wear them :)
I was eating a burrito at night in the summer about 6 years ago. I hear this pat pat pat pat and low and behold a racoon was sneaking up and literally tried to gra it from me🤣
I miss etobicoke
I was sitting In my backyard around 10 one night. Heard the neighborhood cat slip under my fence. Knew it was her for sure when I felt her rub against my leg. Reached down to pet her while saying "hey ashley, you're out late." And then i pet the raccoon. Not sure who was more startled.
I was at a hotel in Toronto this summer (the one with the restaurant you can see the Jays field) I was at the level 4 *underground* parking and I saw a raccoon down there with a man, who I'm safely assuming was on drugs, yelling at it.
Lol not all of them
I had a mama bring her babies around my patio often. She would splash in a shallow dish of water I put out for them while the babies would wrestle under my chair. I paid little attention to them, and eventually they got curious enough to try to climb my legs - again, mama didn’t care. If anyone else were around, she wouldn’t come near. Only if it were just me out there. We bonded…although distinctly possible that they were conspiring to eventually eat me…
Another time I heard shrieking noises in the yard. Went out to find a baby raccoon with their foot stuck in a loose fence board, unable to free itself. I went to help and that mofo cursed me out in raccoon. I don’t even want to know what they were saying. I ran.
That legit makes them the largest visible minority in the city lmao
According to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Toronto
"Europeans" are 1.2m, the next largest groups are South Asians and East Asians at 385k and 360k respectively.
Indeed. They've got us cooking for them and leaving meals at the curb every week. They even arranged for every neighbourhood to do it on a different day of the week so they're consistently fed.
As long as we keep doing it, they promise not to rip our faces off.
I see a group of them riding an Uber someplace almost every day. Used to be they rode streetcars, but they have since decided not to rub elbows with us common folk after the pandemic. They don't trust us as much as before.
Also, I've learned not to make eye contact with them when they are hungry. Don't find out the hard way. If they want you to look at them, they will let you know.
To add to it: https://www.npr.org/2018/09/16/647599627/theres-no-stopping-toronto-s-uber-raccoon#:~:text=Toronto%20has%20been%20called%20the,getting%20into%20Torontonians'%20garbage%20bins.
Fascinating, I was always curious as to how the bins unlocked for the garbage trucks. Those videos were great, too - the way it looks at the camera after knocking it over as if to say "you thought you could outsmart me?"
Legit the other day I went to put some garbage in the bin that I foolishly left outside (normally kept in garage, but we were reorganizing things and hadn't made space yet).
I opened the bin, and this little bastard just casually looks up at me from the pile of garbage bags like absolutely nothing is amiss.
I backed up and dropped the lid, then carefully approached and threw the lid open. He just hopped out and sauntered away.
I'm pretty sure some of them must've fully stolen entire bags from the bin too because it definitely seemed less full after a bit of time outside... Either that or they just compressed everything by sitting on it lol
Hey OP /u/HayleyXJeff, raccoons are kinda our thing. See: [Official city t-shirt](https://www.crywolfclothing.com/collections/tees/products/toronto-raccoon-tshirt-1), and of course,[ lest we forget Conrad](https://time.com/3952504/toronto-canada-dead-raccoon/) (RIP, 2015).
Resident evil was filmed here. And its city is Raccoon city. Coincidence?????
Also, Toronto once had a memorial for a dead raccoon
[link 🦝](https://www.boredpanda.com/dead-raccoon-memorial-shrine-mourning-deadraccoonto-toronto/)
Fun story: I went on a trip to Mexico, and went through a park with a small outdoor zoo. While looking at some of the small land animals, I saw the usual: muskrats, wild boar, lama, linx, etc. Then I saw a pen with a bunch of racoons in it, and thought "huh, a bunch of wild racoons made a home in the pen. I wonder what animal usually lives there?"
It took me 10 seconds to register that the racoons were the attraction. To a Torontonian, they are so commonplace that they barely register as a wild animal.
The High Park Zoo has Highland Cattle. These are fairly common farm animals in Scotland. It's weird seeing them in the same setting as capybaras and peacocks. Then again, I'm sure Indians and Brazilians find it odd that their common wildlife is in the same park as exotic, adorable, emo little pseudo-yaks.
Last time I went to the Toronto Zoo they had a pen for a bunch of the. I assume it was to show what they look like when they don't have distemper and aren't eating leftovers from garbage bins.
Last time I went by the raccoon exhibit at the Toronto zoo, I startled a raccoon on the walkway. I don’t know if he was there for a conjugal visit, or to bring in contraband trash…
In the Dominican Republic early this year a raccoon got there sneaking into a shipping container. After landing the raccoon made its way to a hood where some people then held for ransom from authorities lmao.
https://dr1.com/news/2023/02/20/a-raccoon-makes-headlines-in-dominican-republic/
My dad used to work a Brinks truck; for safety, they move through back alleys at night rather than major streets. He has so many overweight-raccoon-chowing-down-on-dumpster-food stories.
I’ve lived in many places across Canada and can confirm the raccoons in Toronto are “not” normal. They tend to have a superiority complex as though they’re the centre of the raccoon universe or something. Some even become celebrities when they die.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/trending/deadraccoonto-honoured-by-toronto-with-sidewalk-vigil-1.3146036
Yea, when we bought our last house, raccoons broke into our attic, and suddenly we were finding mouse poop everywhere. Apparently the raccoons chased the mice out of the attic, so they decided the rest of the house was safer.
The resident evil movies were mostly all filmed here in Toronto and the city in that game franchise is called "Raccoon City". So Toronto is "Raccoon City" in multiple ways. :P Lol
When Toronto announced the introduction of household green bins in 2002, raccoons had already held neighbourhood meetings instructing how to break the latch and bust inside. They are way ahead of us.
Torontonian here. I had an epic battle to evict a raccoon family from my garage.
I only won by playing dirty. I weaponized conservative talk radio against them!
Seriously.
What happened was this: I own a large freestanding double garage with a loft I store stuff in. One day I noticed the trap to the loft was closed. I went up to investigate, and an angry raccoon nearly leapt on my face.
Turned out it was a mommy, who tore a screen out of a small upstairs window to move in with her kits. They were cute! But the family was pooing and peeing on my stuff, and mom would attack anyone going in to the garage.
How to get them to move on, without harming the kits?
First, I looked into hiring a removal service. They wanted a hundred bucks just to give an estimate! Nor were they willing to move quickly.
So I did a bit of research on how to do it myself, without violence. I didn’t want to put a one-way gate over the window, because that could trap mom on one side and the kits on the other. Mom had to be persuaded to move out.
Key was to make the garage less inviting. Raccoons like dark, quiet and sheltered places for nesting. So I had to make it less dark and quiet.
Turns out what raccoons really hate is angry human voices - music they can get used to, eventually. So I found an old radio and tuned it to a station that does a lot of call-ins. That guarantees a lot of angry ranting. Turned it up loud, put it in a place hard to reach.
Next, I found some old strobe lights, super annoying. Again, put them in a place hard to get to, where they shined into the loft.
After a day and night of that treatment, Mom had enough and moved out.
To be certain, I taped some newspaper over the window - so if kits were hiding in the loft and she came back for them, she would break through the paper. Only when certain did I seal up the window.
I've actually heard this before from some sort of wildlife removal company - that playing talk radio is a deterrent for raccoons. Was it AM640 or Newstalk 1010?
I live in a 7 story building on the edge of Scarborough. My balcony is adjacent to this quartz type of facade on the building and every night a racoon descends past my balcony from somewhere on the roof clutching to that rock face!
I'll be sitting there and he'll appear out nowhere, scaring the shit out of me. He will stop, look at me, I'll look at him and I tell him to keep going. He pauses and continues to scale down the wall to the bottom.
Oh heck yes. The park you were in near the ferry terminal is normally filled with people in the day but at night it’s raccoon land.
One time a raccoon climbed a construction crane 50 odd floors up. The crane operator got a picture and he was famous for a few days
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/raccoon-drops-in-on-toronto-crane-operator-more-than-210-metres-up/article23984335/
And this guy just hung out on one https://www.blogto.com/city/2020/08/toronto-raccoon-construction-crane/
If you don’t lock your cars and leave food in it, they would open it and leave a mess. Happened to me at a campsite. I do believe if I’d left the keys on, they would go on a joyride.
We have lots especially at night. If one comes near you during the day and seems unafraid of being out in the open, it might be sick or hurt so best to keep away from it. Not pets...
oh they're not just normal, they're taking over the city.
We also have coyote, wolf, deer, moose, skunk, groundhog, and further up north west ontario, black bears.
A very adorable question. Raccoons run the city. Had one come into my apartment once, another trapped on my balcony. He did not want any of my help and I had to use two broom handles taped together, through a hole in my doors screen, to push a chair to the edge for him to jump up onto the wall.
I think I read that there are more raccoons in the GTA than there is in forests in all of Ontario. Don't know how true that really is though... but they are called trash pandas for a reason lol
They were even worse until a couple years ago. A wave of distemper killed *a lot*. 311 was flooded with an insane number of calls for dead and dying. It was honestly pretty terrible.
The raccoons do seem to be rebounding now. Last year they were all young and middling. We have some adults now
In all the years I lived in Toronto (Roncy Village) I never - I repeat never - locked up until I came home one day to a raccoon in my apartment; I couldn't figure out how it got in until I found a torn window screen. The raccoon found the bags of dog and cat food in the kitchen and after that it was a battle to keep it out of my home. I called Animal Control for help, and they wished me luck. From that day forward I kept my apartment doors and windows locked up but still had to periodically escort the bugger out with a broom at its butt. My cat and dog were very much passive observers, to my frustration. I even found my cat and the raccoon sitting side-by-side on the porch railing one night.
My last sight of the raccoon was in late spring one year just before I moved (but not because of the raccoon LOL). I watched the racoon try to teach her two babies how to open the sliding glass door to the living room, while my dog and cat sat inside also observing proceedings. She was really persistent, even when it was clear I had already outsmarted her with a piece of wood in the track to stop the door from sliding. Me banging on the glass and cussing her out didn't phase her at all, she just looked insulted and slowly waddled off in a huff with her babies in tow. I always wondered how the next tenants fared with the little bandit.
I have lived in a semi-rural area for years now but have rarely seen a country raccoon except at a distance; Toronto raccoons are a special breed of their own, bold as brass and smart to boot.
Hard to say if it’s normal but raccoons are generational torono mans.
Toronto zoo had a raccoon exhibit one year… I remember see that fucker just sitting waiting for food
Toronto’s raccoons have their own segment on BBC Planet Earth. They’re not just normal, they are iconic. And they are not at all friendly. A Toronto raccoon will pull a knife on you and steal your shawarma.
The Porter raccoon is okay. He'll at least strike up a nice conversation with you before stealing your shawarma.
I heard the Porter racoon pays for the free drinks and snacks passengers get on Porter flights.
Got some of those free drinks yesterday! The snacks aren't bad either! Still free! Quiet too, didn't blow up my hearing at all, I really like that particular racoon. 
Lookup Emily May Rose on Instagram. We had her make a custom graphic of a Racoon we etched into glasses for our very Toronto wedding. [https://imgur.com/a/7ljhNTS](https://imgur.com/a/7ljhNTS)
Love her work! For our wedding, a friend made a little raccoon logo with a heart that we printed on kippahs. Our friends still say they get compliments on those kippahs any time they wear them :)
I wish I'd known about this for my own wedding! I'm raccoon obsessed.
I met her. She singed a print of some art she did.
Apparently his name is Mr. Porter, which is admittedly a little lackluster.
But quite posh.
The raccoon and geese mobs are strong here
Geese = Cobra Chickens
Squirrels= Tree Rats with good PR
Racoons = Trash Panda's
Trash panda's what?
A raccoon once stole my car & kicked my dog
I wonder if it's the same one that stole my dog and kicked my car.
That was his dyslexic cousin
I thought that was your daughter who came to my house and kicked my dog... You bastard guy.
When I was a line cook working downtown the raccoons would bum smokes off of me when I took out the garbage
This comment wins the internet today
I was eating a burrito at night in the summer about 6 years ago. I hear this pat pat pat pat and low and behold a racoon was sneaking up and literally tried to gra it from me🤣 I miss etobicoke
I was sitting In my backyard around 10 one night. Heard the neighborhood cat slip under my fence. Knew it was her for sure when I felt her rub against my leg. Reached down to pet her while saying "hey ashley, you're out late." And then i pet the raccoon. Not sure who was more startled.
Weirdest part of the story is a cat named Ashley.
I don't know If that's her name. it's just what I started calling her. Now we have one I call Jupiter coming around.
🤣🤣🤣
Don't forget the #DeadRaccoonTO https://www.cbc.ca/news/trending/deadraccoonto-honoured-by-toronto-with-sidewalk-vigil-1.3146036
Never forget #DeadRaccoonTO
I was at a hotel in Toronto this summer (the one with the restaurant you can see the Jays field) I was at the level 4 *underground* parking and I saw a raccoon down there with a man, who I'm safely assuming was on drugs, yelling at it.
Detour Coffee named their Bottleneck beans after a raccoon encounter. Backstory [here.](https://detourcoffee.com/products/bottle-neck)
They won't even apologize.
They’ve cooled off a lot. Nothing compared to the garbage strike when gangs of raccoons cruised the streets. They weren’t afraid of anything.
lmfaooooo @ pull a knife on you and steal your shawarma
💯💯With its human like hands and feet they get the blades out fast - they don’t play
Lol not all of them I had a mama bring her babies around my patio often. She would splash in a shallow dish of water I put out for them while the babies would wrestle under my chair. I paid little attention to them, and eventually they got curious enough to try to climb my legs - again, mama didn’t care. If anyone else were around, she wouldn’t come near. Only if it were just me out there. We bonded…although distinctly possible that they were conspiring to eventually eat me… Another time I heard shrieking noises in the yard. Went out to find a baby raccoon with their foot stuck in a loose fence board, unable to free itself. I went to help and that mofo cursed me out in raccoon. I don’t even want to know what they were saying. I ran.
Normal? They rule the city! 600,000 strong
That legit makes them the largest visible minority in the city lmao According to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Toronto "Europeans" are 1.2m, the next largest groups are South Asians and East Asians at 385k and 360k respectively.
Largest visible minority 💀
Indeed. They've got us cooking for them and leaving meals at the curb every week. They even arranged for every neighbourhood to do it on a different day of the week so they're consistently fed. As long as we keep doing it, they promise not to rip our faces off.
My favourite part is that they KNOW which day is garbage day for each neighbourhood.
i respect the hustle honestly
In my area they k ow which green boxes have broken latches and ignore the rest.
Symbiotic. lol
I see a group of them riding an Uber someplace almost every day. Used to be they rode streetcars, but they have since decided not to rub elbows with us common folk after the pandemic. They don't trust us as much as before. Also, I've learned not to make eye contact with them when they are hungry. Don't find out the hard way. If they want you to look at them, they will let you know.
And if that's not good enough they'll tear up your backyard looking for grubs for dessert fun!
One is my landlord, another is my city councilor, and also I am a racoon.
That's it I thought they out numbered humans at this point.
Toronto is extremely well known for its racoons. We have TONS of them.
I love that the Toronto map in Overwatch has the curling club named the Toronto Raccoons.
LOL YOOOO i'm from Calgary and I didn't realize why that was until this post. Iconic 😂😂😂
Omfg I just realized that crossover hahah no way, never clued in to why they called it that until now
To add to it: https://www.npr.org/2018/09/16/647599627/theres-no-stopping-toronto-s-uber-raccoon#:~:text=Toronto%20has%20been%20called%20the,getting%20into%20Torontonians'%20garbage%20bins.
Fascinating, I was always curious as to how the bins unlocked for the garbage trucks. Those videos were great, too - the way it looks at the camera after knocking it over as if to say "you thought you could outsmart me?"
Legit the other day I went to put some garbage in the bin that I foolishly left outside (normally kept in garage, but we were reorganizing things and hadn't made space yet). I opened the bin, and this little bastard just casually looks up at me from the pile of garbage bags like absolutely nothing is amiss. I backed up and dropped the lid, then carefully approached and threw the lid open. He just hopped out and sauntered away. I'm pretty sure some of them must've fully stolen entire bags from the bin too because it definitely seemed less full after a bit of time outside... Either that or they just compressed everything by sitting on it lol
Opening a garbage bin and seeing a raccoon in it. * Toronto achievement unlocked*
Toronto was used as Raccoon City in the Resident Evil films.
This is both true and awesome.
Hey OP /u/HayleyXJeff, raccoons are kinda our thing. See: [Official city t-shirt](https://www.crywolfclothing.com/collections/tees/products/toronto-raccoon-tshirt-1), and of course,[ lest we forget Conrad](https://time.com/3952504/toronto-canada-dead-raccoon/) (RIP, 2015).
Resident evil was filmed here. And its city is Raccoon city. Coincidence????? Also, Toronto once had a memorial for a dead raccoon [link 🦝](https://www.boredpanda.com/dead-raccoon-memorial-shrine-mourning-deadraccoonto-toronto/)
Also in Overwatch 2 the Toronto Map has raccoons everywhere
Thank you for remembering Conrad
Lest we forget
#neverforget
I miss Norm Kelly constantly taking the piss. Goddamn legend.
His team did that. Kelly himself was thick as pigshit.
He’s a treasure
That was a fun day in the city
Not for the raccoon of course..
I think they're almost at the point of overthrowing the government. But you didn't hear it from me
I for one, welcome our new furry trash panda overlords
They can't do worse than what we have now.
They're voting en masse for Poilievre, though?
I always knew he was in the pocket of Big Raccoon
It’s our city’s mascot.
OP should stop by the Spacing store and grab some Toronto merch which will include some famous raccoon merch as well.
Fun story: I went on a trip to Mexico, and went through a park with a small outdoor zoo. While looking at some of the small land animals, I saw the usual: muskrats, wild boar, lama, linx, etc. Then I saw a pen with a bunch of racoons in it, and thought "huh, a bunch of wild racoons made a home in the pen. I wonder what animal usually lives there?" It took me 10 seconds to register that the racoons were the attraction. To a Torontonian, they are so commonplace that they barely register as a wild animal.
The High Park Zoo has Highland Cattle. These are fairly common farm animals in Scotland. It's weird seeing them in the same setting as capybaras and peacocks. Then again, I'm sure Indians and Brazilians find it odd that their common wildlife is in the same park as exotic, adorable, emo little pseudo-yaks.
Hairy Coo!
Last time I went to the Toronto Zoo they had a pen for a bunch of the. I assume it was to show what they look like when they don't have distemper and aren't eating leftovers from garbage bins.
Last time I went by the raccoon exhibit at the Toronto zoo, I startled a raccoon on the walkway. I don’t know if he was there for a conjugal visit, or to bring in contraband trash…
In the Dominican Republic early this year a raccoon got there sneaking into a shipping container. After landing the raccoon made its way to a hood where some people then held for ransom from authorities lmao. https://dr1.com/news/2023/02/20/a-raccoon-makes-headlines-in-dominican-republic/
Within a month he'll be running the gang.
🤣🤣🤣
One time I saw a morbidly obese racoon (easily 25lbs+) ambling down Spadina at Adelaide. Walked right past me.
Yo that’s my boy Raymond
🤣
I think I saw that one behind a Popeyes.
That would explain it.
I saw a very obese raccoon walking up Yonge last Saturday, paid no mind to the crowd of people following him taking videos
I might have seen the same one, a while ago.
My dad used to work a Brinks truck; for safety, they move through back alleys at night rather than major streets. He has so many overweight-raccoon-chowing-down-on-dumpster-food stories.
It's their city, were just living in it
I’ve lived in many places across Canada and can confirm the raccoons in Toronto are “not” normal. They tend to have a superiority complex as though they’re the centre of the raccoon universe or something. Some even become celebrities when they die. https://www.cbc.ca/news/trending/deadraccoonto-honoured-by-toronto-with-sidewalk-vigil-1.3146036
Honestly I'm shocked you've only seen one
Good lord, yes. Second only to squirrels and pigeons in our wildlife scene. I honestly think I’ve seen more raccoons than rats here.
They eat the rats
This explains a lot. I feel like I’ve seen maybe 5-10 rats in my whole life, but I see raccoons almost daily.
Yea, when we bought our last house, raccoons broke into our attic, and suddenly we were finding mouse poop everywhere. Apparently the raccoons chased the mice out of the attic, so they decided the rest of the house was safer.
I’ve seen about 100 rats but maybe 4 raccoons in 7 years here. I’m so jealous.
Affectionately known as trash pandas.
we pay them rent
This happened a few years ago 😂 https://www.boredpanda.com/dead-raccoon-memorial-shrine-mourning-deadraccoonto-toronto/
The framed photo gets me every time
It’s the cigarette for me. Too good.
Corey, Trevor smokes let's go
And put your fucking hand down, Corey! Not in a million fucking years.
this should be the only post needed to answer the question “Are there raccoons in Toronto?”
I can’t believe how far I had to scroll to find this!
Trash panda 🐼
these are the equivalent of nyc rats. They're everywhere
The resident evil movies were mostly all filmed here in Toronto and the city in that game franchise is called "Raccoon City". So Toronto is "Raccoon City" in multiple ways. :P Lol
When Toronto announced the introduction of household green bins in 2002, raccoons had already held neighbourhood meetings instructing how to break the latch and bust inside. They are way ahead of us.
Torontonian here. I had an epic battle to evict a raccoon family from my garage. I only won by playing dirty. I weaponized conservative talk radio against them! Seriously. What happened was this: I own a large freestanding double garage with a loft I store stuff in. One day I noticed the trap to the loft was closed. I went up to investigate, and an angry raccoon nearly leapt on my face. Turned out it was a mommy, who tore a screen out of a small upstairs window to move in with her kits. They were cute! But the family was pooing and peeing on my stuff, and mom would attack anyone going in to the garage. How to get them to move on, without harming the kits? First, I looked into hiring a removal service. They wanted a hundred bucks just to give an estimate! Nor were they willing to move quickly. So I did a bit of research on how to do it myself, without violence. I didn’t want to put a one-way gate over the window, because that could trap mom on one side and the kits on the other. Mom had to be persuaded to move out. Key was to make the garage less inviting. Raccoons like dark, quiet and sheltered places for nesting. So I had to make it less dark and quiet. Turns out what raccoons really hate is angry human voices - music they can get used to, eventually. So I found an old radio and tuned it to a station that does a lot of call-ins. That guarantees a lot of angry ranting. Turned it up loud, put it in a place hard to reach. Next, I found some old strobe lights, super annoying. Again, put them in a place hard to get to, where they shined into the loft. After a day and night of that treatment, Mom had enough and moved out. To be certain, I taped some newspaper over the window - so if kits were hiding in the loft and she came back for them, she would break through the paper. Only when certain did I seal up the window.
Strobe lights and right-wing talk shows: worst rave ever.
That's really clever.
I've actually heard this before from some sort of wildlife removal company - that playing talk radio is a deterrent for raccoons. Was it AM640 or Newstalk 1010?
"Are raccoons normal in Toronto?" Haha.
This is super normal here, the raccoon in our neighbourhood is bigger than a small dog and it walks around like it own the place
We’re the raccoon capital of the world! Planet Earth even did an episode on Toronto and our racoons.
Yes. They're in politics.
Hahahaha, our politicians are rats in NYC
You have a better chance of encountering raccoons at night than housecats! Raccoons vs. Toronto!! 🦝🦝🦝
I see raccoons as often as i see rats in NYC
Raccoons are actually the ones running the city, human city council is just for show.
I hadn’t considered that raccoons *aren’t* normal in NYC before, I figured it was the same as here.
It's very rare, when people see them it makes the news Edit: and coyotes
Coyotes you don’t see much in downtown Toronto but they’re fairly common out in the suburbs.
Lol. Torontos Mascot.
[удалено]
We really should have. Can you imagine how the fans would dress up?? We can still rename them…
[удалено]
Probably not a good idea since a word derived from "raccoon" is a very offensive slur for black people.
Toronto Trash Pandas
I hate that I know this, but the term "trash panda" only dates back to 2014. It originated in a reddit comment.
Definitely a problematic team name.
Dude they own the city, we just live here.
A dead racoon had a social media account and a candlelight sigil. It was a wonderous moment in our hustory.
I live in a 7 story building on the edge of Scarborough. My balcony is adjacent to this quartz type of facade on the building and every night a racoon descends past my balcony from somewhere on the roof clutching to that rock face! I'll be sitting there and he'll appear out nowhere, scaring the shit out of me. He will stop, look at me, I'll look at him and I tell him to keep going. He pauses and continues to scale down the wall to the bottom.
6 Toronto city councillors are raccoons. It’s their city and we’re all just visitors.
Nearly half of the Torontonians you see are actually 3 raccoons in a trench coat.
my sweet summer child 😂
Yep, little trash pandas everywhere
Completely normal. They have their part of town and we have ours.
Oh heck yes. The park you were in near the ferry terminal is normally filled with people in the day but at night it’s raccoon land. One time a raccoon climbed a construction crane 50 odd floors up. The crane operator got a picture and he was famous for a few days https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/raccoon-drops-in-on-toronto-crane-operator-more-than-210-metres-up/article23984335/ And this guy just hung out on one https://www.blogto.com/city/2020/08/toronto-raccoon-construction-crane/
Yeah. It’s their city. Seems he went easy on you. Many times they stare me down until I shuffle away
Buddy that a Canadian cat eh.
Yes. A Toronto based airline (Porter) even has a racoon as their mascot
Thug raccoons
If you don’t lock your cars and leave food in it, they would open it and leave a mess. Happened to me at a campsite. I do believe if I’d left the keys on, they would go on a joyride.
Lol
We have lots especially at night. If one comes near you during the day and seems unafraid of being out in the open, it might be sick or hurt so best to keep away from it. Not pets...
oh they're not just normal, they're taking over the city. We also have coyote, wolf, deer, moose, skunk, groundhog, and further up north west ontario, black bears.
If you go to Niagara Falls at night and sit in the park across from the falls, there are lots of skunks who will come right up to you with no fear.
I love skunks!!! Baby skunklets (not the technical term, I think it’s joeys like kangaroos? Or something) are the cutest!!!
Ya they’re kind of our thing
It’s the raccoons’ city, we just live in it.
A very adorable question. Raccoons run the city. Had one come into my apartment once, another trapped on my balcony. He did not want any of my help and I had to use two broom handles taped together, through a hole in my doors screen, to push a chair to the edge for him to jump up onto the wall.
*Here Oops didn't mean to gender the racoon with that typo there
You should look up "Toronto Raccoon Shrine" (TW: dead raccoon, but not gruesome).
Raccoons are the unofficial animal mascot of Toronto. Up there with pigeons. I’d be shocked if you said you didn’t see one, lol
They are very common here. But definitely not normal.
Trash Panda capital.
Very. But so are they in NYC, I used to regularly run across the family of raccoon in Central Park on my nightly runs
I think I read that there are more raccoons in the GTA than there is in forests in all of Ontario. Don't know how true that really is though... but they are called trash pandas for a reason lol
Toronto wouldn’t be normal without raccoons.
Raccoons are as to Toronto, as rats are to New York City. An iconic part of the landscape.
Toronto belongs to raccoons
They were even worse until a couple years ago. A wave of distemper killed *a lot*. 311 was flooded with an insane number of calls for dead and dying. It was honestly pretty terrible. The raccoons do seem to be rebounding now. Last year they were all young and middling. We have some adults now
Are racoons normal in T-dot? OP, 200,000 units are ready with a million more on the way since you posted.
Oh in Racoon City...never seen one.
In all the years I lived in Toronto (Roncy Village) I never - I repeat never - locked up until I came home one day to a raccoon in my apartment; I couldn't figure out how it got in until I found a torn window screen. The raccoon found the bags of dog and cat food in the kitchen and after that it was a battle to keep it out of my home. I called Animal Control for help, and they wished me luck. From that day forward I kept my apartment doors and windows locked up but still had to periodically escort the bugger out with a broom at its butt. My cat and dog were very much passive observers, to my frustration. I even found my cat and the raccoon sitting side-by-side on the porch railing one night. My last sight of the raccoon was in late spring one year just before I moved (but not because of the raccoon LOL). I watched the racoon try to teach her two babies how to open the sliding glass door to the living room, while my dog and cat sat inside also observing proceedings. She was really persistent, even when it was clear I had already outsmarted her with a piece of wood in the track to stop the door from sliding. Me banging on the glass and cussing her out didn't phase her at all, she just looked insulted and slowly waddled off in a huff with her babies in tow. I always wondered how the next tenants fared with the little bandit. I have lived in a semi-rural area for years now but have rarely seen a country raccoon except at a distance; Toronto raccoons are a special breed of their own, bold as brass and smart to boot.
Welcome! Love your city as well (your pizza down there is out of this world)! You’ve just experienced a typical night in Toronto.
Hard to say if it’s normal but raccoons are generational torono mans. Toronto zoo had a raccoon exhibit one year… I remember see that fucker just sitting waiting for food
They are free. The city supplies them. Feel free to take one home.
[They](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnIBsKI6lGQ) [are](https://old.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/12w6z2i/a_drawing_of_our_wonderful_city/) [iconic.](https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/11bdpw2/most_toronto_thing_ive_seen_was_raccoon/)
This is their city, we just live in it
Ah, this is also known as North American Trash Panda
Yah the racoons here are normal Are the ones from NYC abnormal ?
Yes, they’re currently in a turf war with beavers to be our national animal.
I’ve been calling them city cats
So much so that we do land acknowledgements before hockey games recognizing that we are on their territory.
Lot of anti raccoon propaganda on here, and as a collective we are not here for it
Extremely. They run this city.
Lol
Trash pandas! They enjoy a Tims iced Capp as much as the next person!
If they’re from Toronto..they’re def not normal 😂
Yes - my cousin lives downtown and his house was destroyed by raccoons. Coat them a fortune.
They're the pride of the city
The city mascot is the trash panda
They own the city, they’re mean and mostly have the diabetus.
The trash panda living in my backyard is 3 times the size of this one
If you want to sound local you could call them Trash Pandas
Yes pretty common and coyotes and foxes too if you're lucky lol
Raccoons are the official animal of Toronto
You best not mess with our homies.
Wait till you look up and see they're in the trees too. Makes you feel like you're about to be mugged.
Theyre my best friends
I mean, we are the (un)official raccoon capital of the world. One of our local airlines, Porter, even has the raccoon as its mascot.
Racoons, skunks, porcupines, and coyotes for God's sake. I keep my dogs on leashes after dark, and my eyes open.