When you are seeking a pet, the last animal on your mind should be a raccoon. Wild animals should never be converted into domesticated animal companions but unfortunately many people today are opting to do just this. They purchase baby raccoons from licensed exotic animal dealers and force these animals to live lives nature never intended for them. Learn more about the risks of keeping raccoons as pets, and why many humane wildlife control companies in Scarborough advise against the practice.

Your Pet Raccoon May Infect You and Others

One of the primary reasons wildlife animals should never be kept as pets is the fact that they can transmit various diseases to human beings. These include the raccoon roundworm, leptospirosis, rabies, and salmonella. Raccoons are biters by nature. You, your family members, guests, and other pets may fall victim to the raccoon’s bite. Through these bites, diseases may be passed on leaving the victim with more than just a wound. Raccoon scratches may also cause infection. To make matters worse, owners of pet raccoons must be prepared for the financial and legal implications of the behaviours of their pets, especially around strangers.

Your Pet raccoon may Destroy Your Home

Besides being cute enough to make people want to pet them, raccoons are known for their clever and ingenious behaviour. But this is also what makes them so difficult to manage as pets. They also have the potential to ‘act out’ or become erratic, especially when they feel stressed. If raccoons are left unsupervised, even for short periods, they can destroy a home and its contents. In their adult state, raccoon behaviour around pets and people is unpredictable. You will need to find measures to keep your pet raccoon controlled but you cannot lock the animal away as wildlife caging is inhumane.

Your Pet Raccoon May Consume All Your Time

Because of how unpredictable and destructive raccoon behaviour can be, they must be supervised continuously. This means that people who decide to keep them as pets must dedicate their time to this or hire pet sitters. Getting a pet sitter for a raccoon will be difficult however due to the animal’s nature. Because raccoons that are treated as pets lose their ability to survive in the wild, owners must dedicate 10-15 years of their lives to constant supervision of the animal. Finding a suitable vet will also be tedious as few vets are equipped to deal with the animals.

Legal issues

In some places, keeping a raccoon as a pet is illegal. So in addition to traumatizing yourself and the animal, you’d be breaking the law.  And since it is illegal to take a raccoon from the wild and turn it into a pet, you will constantly have to prove that you obtained your pet raccoon legally and ethically.  This may mean constantly carrying and showing evidence of purchase from a certified exotic pet dealer. Failure to provide this evidence might result in your pet raccoon being removed from your care and fines or sanctions being applied to you.

Expert Resolution of raccoon problems

If there’s a wild raccoon loose on your property, Skedaddle has the solution you need. Our animal control and wildlife removal services are both effective and humane. If a raccoon has found its way into your domestic space, our expert wildlife technicians will remove the animal through the use of humane tools such as one-way doors and after removal will take steps to ensure that re-entry is not possible for the animals. With Skedaddle’s humane wildlife control services, your Scarborough property will be free of raccoons in no time.