Ask Lemmy

Nature is way way more vicious than most people think or believe. Rape, infanticide, necrophilia, cannibalism, etc. Are not entirely uncommon out in nature. It's a vicious race for survival and procreation and anything goes. Raccoons are the same.

Nature gets brutal sometimes. One of my dogs once killed another dog, but she's always been a total sweetheart to me.

Raccoons are cute, curious, critters with thumbs. They like to wash their food. They're adorable!

But they are also wild creatures that will bite when scared and can carry dangerous diseases.

Nature gets brutal.

Animals can't be evil. They're amoral. They don't philosophize, they don't feel guilt; they don't comprehend life in the same way that we do. Both cruelty and mercy are human constructs. All animals can do is try to guarantee survival for themselves and their offspring. They've all evolved into a specific niche, and these behaviors you deride are just instincts that have successfully ensured the survival of their ancestors, and so were passed on. If you can't handle the idea that animals in general sometimes kill to survive, get a plant

Maybe stop anthropomorphizing animals with human concepts like morality and just accept them for as they are?

Animals lack morality. Raccoons would hunt humans for fun and food if they were capable.

I saw a video of a lady trying to help baby raccoons that had fallen through an open window climb up and get to their mother. The mother attacked her. They don't know our intent. They just see a threat to their babies. That's not evil. That's just nature and animals. The lady was pissed that it tried to get her when she was trying to help, which is understandable. But I don't think she thought, "oh you evil piece of shit." More like, "I wish you knew I was trying to help."

If you have chickens, you will automatically dislike raccoons.

If given the opportunity, raccoons will get into a coop and kill all chickens. It won't eat the chickens. It will just kill them.

Capybaras. Animals aren't evil but if you're trying to think of a chill animal that does no wrong by human standards, it's capybaras.

Like many other mammels male raccoon will kill offspring of other males to speed up the mating availibility of female raccoons.

If they weren't up to no good, why would they wear masks?

No but seriously they will straight-up murder chickens for the fun of feeling the hens' necks snap under their fingers.

One of my friends keeps chickens in a small coop surrounded by chicken wire. A while back some raccoons killed most of his chickens by pulling pieces of them through the small holes in the wire fence. A few years after the incident I was visiting my friend. While we were hanging out in the backyard I stepped on a dessicated chicken wing...

My dad had been feeding raccoons and squirrels but the raccoon was still hungry one day and killed and ate the slowest squirrel. I wouldn't call it evil though. Nature is metal as some people say.

Are raccoons evil? Absolutely not. Like humans, some individual animals may engage in anti-social activities (be assholes) but, with a few exceptions, non-human animals do not engage in things from a long-term perspective that is required to develop philosophy, culture, ethics, and morality. Another requirement is likely possessing Theory of the Mind; an understanding that other beings have their own mental states (intention, desires, knowledge, etc.). Few non-human animals have been demonstrated to have this ability and frequently, the evidence suggests that it is also not an ability present in all members of the species.

So, the TL;DR is: No and very few animals could have the capacity to be "evil".

So, what are they?

Cute, inquisitive, intelligent, clever, and, yes, fairly dangerous. Raccoons have sharp teeth and claws that can do serious damage to humans and houses, and they can be very deadly to cats and dogs. For canines, it's generally smaller breeds that are at risk but, in some places, like Western Washington state, populations of raccoons have been observed hunting in packs to take down larger dogs.

Why did I mention houses? Well, raccoons are intelligent and understand enough to get themselves into trouble and cause serious property damage. There are multiple accounts of people feeding local raccoons then, after coming home from a vacation, discovering that the raccoons that they had been feeding had pulled shingles off the roof and damaged the building's sheathing in an attempt to get the food that had been suddenly cut-off.

Additionally, raccoons can carry rather dangerous infectious diseases. On the viral side, they are a major vector of the rabies virus as well as distemper. For bacteria, they have been shown to be vector of listeria and leptospirosis. They also can carry a number of parasites, including acting as the primary host for Baylisascaris procyonis, which is a particularly resilient roundworm (eggs can survive 20% bleach solution) that can cause encephalitis in humans.

Trash pandas are awesome but, best enjoyed from a safe distance.

They technically are able to flip you off.

No. They are not.

A Raccoon would ask are humans evil for treating the world and nature as their privately owned land to do whatever they want without regards to other habitants.

What the others said, animals aren't "evil". But I'm curious now, what did hamsters do?

Search your feelings. You know it to be true.