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In recent years raccoons have proven themselves survivors, successfully pioneering new ground, and achieving a balance on the prairies while many other species have disappeared.
Raccoon 
Procyon lator
To most of us, raccoons are storybook characters - curious but cute bandits of the night. Few of us know that they inhabit many cities, towns, and farmsteads, sometimes as numerous as stray dogs and alley cats.
Though numerous, they avoid human contact. It's an amazing and unusual event for a city dweller to see a fully grown raccoon casually shuffle across an almost deserted city intersection after midnight, far from anything one could call wilderness.
Native to North America, the raccoon is found commonly throughout the U.S., southern Canada, and as far south as Central America and the West Indies. Their natural haunts are forests, stream edges and coastal marshes. But more recently they have moved into the pothole regions of the prairie provinces.
Why this sudden invasion? Many biologists believe man-induced changes in habitat tipped the scales in favour of the raccoon.
Since the 1940's tremendous changes have occurred in prairie agriculture. Mechanized clearing of large tracts of forested land left numerous scrub piles behind. Fewer people farming more land meant numerous abandoned farm buildings. Raccoons moved in to rear young or spend the winter!
Raccoons need a rich variety of both plant and animal food in their diets. They normally select invertebrates such as snails and insects, bird eggs, small birds and mammals, and supplement their diets with wild fruits and nuts. But raccoons could not survive in pothole country with this natural diet alone. Man provides the rest.
The arrival of the combine on the farm scene increased the available food. Combines, though able to harvest large areas in a short time, leave waste grain on the ground. Rapid increases in grain harvests meant excesses stored in buildings easily accessible to raccoons. They quickly adapted to scrounging grain which became a staple item in their diet.
Some wildlife experts believe another phenomenon, the wholesale eradication of coyotes and wolves by man during the 40's and 50's, may have reduced predation pressure on raccoons and opened a new niche in nature's balance.
Wildlife biologists became concerned that this new and efficient predator on duck eggs might dangerously reduce populations of diving ducks. Canvasbacks and redheads nest on mounds of vegetation in shallow water, a previously safe site. Raccoons forage on the water's edge and dine on accessible nests.
In some years, the influx of raccoons took a heavy toll on diving duck production. But a balance has been struck, and both populations now seem to be holding their own.
In their new habitat raccoons have a high mortality rate, especially during the first winter of life. Inexperienced young are often unable to find dens or food. Still growing rapidly, they use up their energy reserves quickly and often do not survive.
Raccoons begin breeding in February and March when temperatures are often well below freezing. Driven by the mating urge to travel away from winter dens in search of mates, they are exposed to intolerable cold. Easily 60 per cent of the population may perish at this crucial time.
But this high mortality rate is offset by a high rate of reproduction. In the north they average four to seven young per litter compared to the two per litter average in the southern U.S. This more than compensates for the high mortality rate in many years.
In recent years raccoons have proven themselves survivors, successfully pioneering new ground, and achieving a balance on the prairies while many other species have disappeared.
