Raccoon Thanksgiving

Summary

99% Invisible: Raccoon Thanksgiving Released on November 26, 2024

Host: Roman Mars
Reporter: Amy Dempsey, Toronto Star
Design Firm: Rarig Pacific
Raccoon Specialist: Dr. Suzanne McDonald
Producer: Katie Mingle

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1. Introduction: Toronto’s Raccoon Conundrum

Every Thanksgiving, alongside the festive gatherings and food indulgence, Toronto grapples with an unexpected adversary: raccoons. Amy Dempsey sets the scene by highlighting the city’s unique relationship with these clever creatures, especially in the aftermath of Thanksgiving feasts.

Amy Dempsey [02:03]: "We like to think Toronto is the raccoon capital of the world, and we're strangely proud of that distinction."

2. The Green Bin Solution

In an effort to curb food waste and deter raccoons from rummaging through garbage, Toronto introduced green bins for organic waste collection. These bins were meticulously designed to be raccoon-resistant, featuring locking mechanisms and durable materials.

Rarig Pacific’s Dennis Monastir [05:53]: "We had to ensure that the lock itself disengages 100% of the time. The container must function in extreme weather conditions."

3. Mayor John Tory’s “War on Raccoons”

Toronto’s Mayor John Tory took a bold stance against the raccoon nuisance, presenting the new green bins as a strategic move in this “war.” His confident proclamation was both earnest and slightly tongue-in-cheek, emphasizing the city’s commitment to solving the problem.

Mayor John Tory [03:53]: "We are ready, we are armed, we are motivated. We have left no stone unturned in our fight against Raccoon Nation."

4. The Breakthrough and Viral Challenge

Initially, the green bins seemed effective, leading some residents to believe that raccoon populations were dwindling. However, Amy Dempsey received reports suggesting the opposite. A viral video emerged showing a raccoon effortlessly opening a green bin, challenging the city’s claims.

Kurt Kohlstedt [13:06]: "There is no such thing as a raccoon proof green bin."

5. Investigating the Raccoon’s Tactics

Determined to uncover the truth, Amy collaborated with Dr. Suzanne McDonald, a renowned raccoon specialist. Through field experiments, they discovered that raccoons could manipulate the bins when knocked down, exploiting a vulnerability in the design.

Amy Dempsey [18:23]: "When it's on the ground, you can just kind of pull on it, like, as if you're pulling a lever."

Dr. Suzanne McDonald [20:33]: "We call her the genius raccoon because I think it's amazing that she did it."

6. Design Flaws and Ongoing Struggle

Rarig Pacific responded by tightening the bin handles and reinforcing the locking mechanisms. Despite these adjustments, the problem persisted, revealing that while the bins were raccoon-resistant, they were not entirely raccoon-proof.

Dennis Monastir [13:43]: "The screw might be loosened too much, and if you just simply tighten it a little bit, it might prevent the issue."

7. The Human Element and Community Response

The situation highlighted a recurring issue in urban wildlife management: balancing effective design with community cooperation. Residents like Amy took proactive measures, such as securing their bins to prevent raccoon access, showcasing the blend of design and human adaptability.

Amy Dempsey [16:39]: "Having accepted defeat, Amy now keeps her bins tied to a wall so raccoons can't knock them over."

8. Historical Perspective: Rebecca the White House Raccoon

In a delightful segue, the episode revisits a historical anecdote about Rebecca, a raccoon gifted to President Calvin Coolidge in 1926. Unlike the urban challenges in Toronto, Rebecca became a beloved, albeit mischievous, member of the White House household.

Kurt Kohlstedt [26:56]: "Grace, the first lady, would walk her around on a leash during the day, and then at night, she'd curl up with Calvin on his lap next to the fireplace."

Dr. Suzanne McDonald [20:58]: "Raccoons don't teach each other these things. That's called social learning."

9. Conclusion: The Ongoing Battle

Toronto’s experience underscores the complexities of urban wildlife design and management. While significant strides have been made in creating raccoon-resistant infrastructure, the adaptability and intelligence of raccoons ensure that the battle is far from over.

Dr. Suzanne McDonald [21:21]: "Our raccoons are not starving to death."

Roman Mars [21:04]: "Nothing is raccoon proof, only raccoon resistant."

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Key Takeaways:

• Design Challenges: Creating effective raccoon-resistant bins requires understanding raccoon behavior and adaptability.
• Community Effort: Successful urban wildlife management necessitates collaboration between designers, specialists, and residents.
• Urban Wildlife Adaptation: Raccoons continue to find innovative ways to overcome human-made barriers, highlighting the dynamic nature of urban ecosystems.
• Historical Insights: Reflecting on past interactions with raccoons, such as Rebecca’s story, provides a broader perspective on human-animal relationships.

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Notable Quotes:

• Amy Dempsey [02:03]: "We like to think Toronto is the raccoon capital of the world..."
• Mayor John Tory [03:53]: "...defeat is not an option."
• Dr. Suzanne McDonald [20:33]: "We call her the genius raccoon because I think it's amazing that she did it."
• Dennis Monastir [13:43]: "The screw might be loosened too much..."

---

Final Thoughts: "Raccoon Thanksgiving" offers a fascinating exploration of urban design, wildlife behavior, and community resilience. Through meticulous storytelling and expert insights, the episode sheds light on the nuanced battle between humans and one of nature’s most adaptable creatures.

Transcript

[Roman Mars]

Apple Card is the perfect card for your holiday shopping. When you use Apple Card on your iPhone, you'll earn up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase, including products at Apple like a new iPhone 16 or Apple Watch Ultra. Apply now in the Wallet app on your iPhone. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch terms and [e-mail] this episode is brought to you by PNC Bank. Some things should be boring, like banking. Boring is safe and reliable. You don't want your bank to be surprising. Surprising is for podcasts about seemingly insignificant inventions that impact our lives, not banks. PNC bank strives to be boring with your money so you can be happily fulfilled with your life. PNC Bank Brilliantly boring since 1865 Brilliantly boring since 1865 is a service mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. PNC bank national association member FDIC this is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars. Every November, Americans gather together to celebrate important traditions. Shopping for doorbuster deals on 72 inch TVs, watching Snoopy Balloons float down 6th Avenue. And we eat a lot of food. Lots of food means lots of food waste. And so after your Thanksgiving, you might find yourself hosting an unwanted second gathering raccoons rummaging in your garbage for discarded turkey and uneaten yams. Today we're presenting a remixed all time favorite story we ran for Thanksgiving 2018. It's about our friendly neighbors up north and their attempt to defend themselves from an invading army of trash pandas. Enjoy. The city of Toronto has a special relationship with raccoons. Or at least they think they do.

[Amy Dempsey]

We are not the only city with raccoons, but we often act like we are. We like to think Toronto is the raccoon capital of the world, and we're strangely proud of that distinction. But we really have no data to back it up.

[Roman Mars]

This is Amy Dempsey, a reporter for the Toronto Star.

[Amy Dempsey]

Do we have more raccoons than, say, Chicago or Vancouver? Well, we don't actually know. You can't count urban raccoons. They're all over the place.

[Roman Mars]

But who needs data when you can feel it in your heart?

[Amy Dempsey]

A few years ago, when a raccoon died on Yonge Street, Torontonians named him Conrad and built a vigil around his body with flowers and a framed photo and cards. So if science ever disproves this idea of Toronto as Raccoon Nation, I really fear for Toronto. I think we're going to have an identity crisis.

[Roman Mars]

But Toronto's Feelings about raccoons are not uncomplicated.

[Amy Dempsey]

Our relationship with raccoons is kind of a love hate relationship. We hate when they destroy our grass and break into our houses. And yes, they do break into our houses.

[Roman Mars]

Maybe worse than all this, though, was the raccoon's proclivity for getting into the compost, which the city started collecting for the residents in green bins several years ago. From the perspective of the raccoons, these compost bins were an incredible development. An all you can eat buffet with the plastic and other garbage already thoughtfully removed.

[Amy Dempsey]

And the raccoons would go to town on our stuff and just spread it everywhere, and you'd wake up, look out your window and go, sh. And then maybe you'd argue with your spouse or roommates about who'd have to clean it up. The green bins become a feast, a veritable feast for the raccoons.

[Roman Mars]

This is Toronto Mayor John Tory a few years ago, dressed in a blue suit in front of a row of Canadian flags, as if he's announcing a plan to step up the war on crime. And in a way, he was probably.

[Amy Dempsey]

Nothing that represents more of a nuisance in a big city like this than the feasting of the raccoons on the contents of the green bins. The war on raccoons sort of started with Mayor John Tory. We've discovered that the members of Raccoon Nation are smart, they're hungry and they're determined. But our job, together with our private sector reinforcements is to show them that we are smarter. He said things like, we are ready, we are armed, we are motivated. We have left no stone unturned in our fight against Raccoon Nation.

[Roman Mars]

The reason Mayor Tory felt so prepared that day was that the city was unveiling a new raccoon resistant green bin for organic waste. During this same press conference, the mayor held up the new bin victoriously and hammed it up with reporters as cameras flashed.

[Amy Dempsey]

I would say it was 75% tongue in cheek, but there was also a hint of seriousness to it. It was pretty clear that he was confident the Newt green bins would solve our raccoon problems. Confident enough to stand in front of news cameras and say, you know, defeat is not an option.

[Roman Mars]

But Amy was about to find out for herself whether defeat was an option. And spoiler alert, it was an option. Let's back up just a bit. This all started the way most things start in cities, with an RFP PDF.

[Amy Dempsey]

Yeah. They put out a request for proposals asking for a new generation green Bin and emphasizing that it had to be rodent resistant, AKA animal resistant, AKA raccoon proof. Please. The company that won was called Rarig Pacific.

[Dennis Monastir]

I'm Dennis Monastir with ririg Pacific, and I serve as the environmental sales manager for Canada.

[Roman Mars]

If the city of Toronto was in a war with raccoons, this, ladies and gentlemen, was the general in charge of a major front. And he took his role very seriously.

[Dennis Monastir]

I mean, Ririg Pacific takes new product development very, very seriously. And there's a five pronged approach approach which we initiate.

[Amy Dempsey]

Dennis is in many ways a classic sales guy. He wears shirts with his company logo. He has a firm handshake. I found him to be extremely helpful and genuine. And when he speaks about the green bin, you can tell he's really proud of it.

[Dennis Monastir]

It's something that I'm very, very passionate about, not only being part of the design team, but I'm also a resident in the city of Toronto. So I know what it means to me as a res.

[Roman Mars]

Rarig Pacific had a number of design criteria they were trying to meet with their green bin prototype. For example, the bins would need to be picked up and dumped by an automatic arm that reached out from the truck. So the bin would need a lid that closed and locked to protect against raccoons. But the lid would also have to open up automatically when the bin was turned upside down and dumped into the truck by the arm.

[Dennis Monastir]

So we had to ensure that the lock itself disengages 100% of the time. The container must function in extreme weather conditions. Ergonomics easily open with one single hand. We were looking at, you know, safety. Kids end up in the darndest places. Definitely don't want them in an organics container, but more importantly, we don't want them locked inside the container. Elimination of internal catch points. Any material that becomes trapped inside the container could pose significant risk with respect to the ick factor for the residents.

[Roman Mars]

But on top of the ick factor and the meddling kids, Rarick Pacific had to think about enemy number one, the raccoons.

[Dennis Monastir]

Yeah. So we worked with an urban raccoon specialist to basically understand raccoons, likes, dislikes, their dexterity, what they can and cannot do.

[Amy Dempsey]

It was a local raccoon specialist by the name of Suzanne McDonald.

[Dr. Suzanne McDonald]

I'm Dr. Suzanne McDonald. I'm a professor at York University. I study animal behavior.

[Amy Dempsey]

I'm calling her a raccoon specialist really downplays her accomplishments. She is a professor of biology and psychology who has studied just about every animal you can think of.

[Roman Mars]

She may have studied every animal you can think of. But in Toronto, there's only one animal that matters.

[Dr. Suzanne McDonald]

In Toronto. Everybody talks about raccoons. I work in Vancouver a lot and nobody talks about raccoons there. There's raccoons all the time.

[Roman Mars]

So she wasn't that surprised when Rarick Pacific got in touch as they were designing their bin.

[Dr. Suzanne McDonald]

And they asked me to talk to them about how raccoons work, and I did. Well, raccoons are omnivores, so that means they can eat everything. They're mischievous. Raccoons have really good teeth. They'll use them. They don't want to use them. They want you to go away.

[Roman Mars]

You go away, you're in my yard.

[Dr. Suzanne McDonald]

They also get a taste for human food. So once they get a taste for that Indian takeout that we've thrown out that they've enjoyed, from then on, it's like berries. I'm not eating berries. We look at them, they look at us. If you would look at a monkey in the face, they'll look away. But raccoons don't. They look right at us.

[Roman Mars]

They look right through us.

[Dr. Suzanne McDonald]

You know, they have pretty good senses of smell, they have pretty good vision, but touch is their superpower. They're very persistent. They will work at a problem for hours and hours and hours, and they're pretty strong.

[Roman Mars]

Rarick Pacific took all of this information and applied it to their bin design.

[Dennis Monastir]

There was multiple iterations of the design. There's multiple photorealistic renderings.

[Roman Mars]

In the end, they came out with a bin they believed in. It's an olive green 26 gallon container with a lid that closes and locks.

[Dennis Monastir]

We felt very, very confident with the success of that locking mechanism and the container itself.

[Amy Dempsey]

So the new green bin rollout took about 18 months from start to finish. People are waiting for their new green bins and people are getting really excited about these things. Before they were rolled out on my street, they were rolled out on some of the streets nearby. So people on my street would have to walk by and see that homes near us had the new green bin and we didn't. And you'd sort of be thinking on your walk to the subway to go to work, like, what the hell? Where, where's my bin?

[Roman Mars]

But eventually Amy did get a bin of her own.

[Amy Dempsey]

So on the lid there is a dial, like a handle that you turn. And when it's in the horizontal position, it's open. When it's in the vertical position, it's secured. It's Locked. You actually have to turn it in a way that really would make it difficult, if not impossible to turn if you don't have opposable thumbs.

[Roman Mars]

And contrary to popular belief, raccoons don't have opposable thumbs even though they can move the thumb like digit on their creepy little hands a little bit. In any case, for a while, everything seemed to be going according to plan. In fact, some people were worried that the new bins were working too well. In other words, people were afraid that without the green bins a as a food source, maybe the raccoons were starving.

[Amy Dempsey]

So the way I became involved in all of this was that In January of 2018, a friend sent me a note saying that he believed the new green bins had eliminated the raccoon population in Toronto. He actually used the word eliminated as.

[Roman Mars]

Any intrepid reporter would do. Amy decided to look into it.

[Amy Dempsey]

I wrote a quick email to Suzanne McDonald, our local raccoon expert. And I said, hey, could the raccoons be dying? She just said, eh, they're probably hiding from the cold. But she said she would have more information in a few months. She said, after I measure more dead raccoons. So I of course wrote back immediately and said, can I come?

[Roman Mars]

Animal control was collecting raccoons killed by cars and storing them in freezers for Suzanne, who would then come in and measure them in order to track the health of the population from year to year.

[Dr. Suzanne McDonald]

And I do this four times a year. And when you go in July, it turns out, and you bring out frozen raccoon carcasses and it takes a while to measure them, they start to melt. Oh dear God. You can imagine the maggots and the blood and the, all the things. But that's fine. I mean, this is science we push through.

[Roman Mars]

Suzanne wouldn't have the results of her data for a while. But while Amy was there watching her measure dead raccoons, she asked her, do.

[Amy Dempsey]

You think it's possible they could learn how to get into the new green bins? And she shook her head no. She said, you know, she'd filmed them trying and not one of them could do it. She just said, they won't, they won't get in. The raccoons won't break into these green bins.

[Kurt Kohlstedt]

There is no such thing as a raccoon proof green bin. Toronto spent a lot of money on the raccoon proof green bins. And this was video that was put out yesterday. I saw it come out.

[Amy Dempsey]

Then about a week later this story comes out.

[Kurt Kohlstedt]

And so look to your left. So watch as they'll zoom into it here.

[Roman Mars]

Hold on.

[Amy Dempsey]

It's basically a local Toronto resident who has filmed a video of a raccoon opening his green bin. Let's give that little tug.

[Kurt Kohlstedt]

There we go. Now he's not gonna get.

[Amy Dempsey]

And just like kind of winking at the camera almost, really.

[Roman Mars]

This was not the only report of a bin being broken into, although it was the first to include video, which quickly went viral, much to the dismay of Dennis Monastir from Rarig Pacific.

[Dennis Monastir]

For somebody just to come out and say, oh, the container doesn't work, you know, is frustrating.

[Roman Mars]

The videos, Dennis says, don't tell the whole story. A couple of break ins doesn't mean the design is flawed.

[Dennis Monastir]

The screw might be loosened too much, and if you just simply tighten it a little bit, it might prevent the issue.

[Amy Dempsey]

Dennis is frustrated by the fact that sometimes when people have issues with their green bins, they don't call the city, they don't report their issues to 311. Instead, they sometimes call the local newspaper and then it becomes a story. I think he said something to me like, you know, when your car breaks down, you don't call the Toronto Star, you call the mechanic.

[Dennis Monastir]

I don't know. For some reason, you know, Toronto specifically, they love to glamorize raccoons.

[Roman Mars]

The city, for its part, blamed the handful of break ins on user error.

[Amy Dempsey]

And the city's response was to suggest that these homeowners weren't locking their bins properly and to emphasize they had only had a handful of complaints out of 450,000 green bins.

[Roman Mars]

The suggestion being that if Joe in Yorkville had a problem with his bin.

[Amy Dempsey]

Then maybe the problem was Joe and not the bin. So soon after I woke up one morning and walked outside and saw that my neighbor's green bin was on the ground in our laneway and there was food everywhere. So I texted my neighbor and said, the raccoons have gotten into your green bin. She said, you know, what the hell? Can the raccoons get into the green bins now?

[Roman Mars]

At this point, Amy had been convinced by the city's argument. There was no problem with the bins. The problem was the users.

[Amy Dempsey]

I wrote back and said, more likely that you didn't lock it properly. I still have the text message, and when I read it, I cringe a little bit. It's like, no, I don't think you locked it properly, Caroline.

[Roman Mars]

But Amy didn't get to stay smug for long. Two nights later, her own bin was plundered.

[Amy Dempsey]

My husband and I get a group text message from Caroline. The raccoons have gotten into your green bin. At this point, I'm floored because my husband is a person who locks things and checks locks, like, seven times.

[Roman Mars]

It seemed the reporter had just become a character in her own story.

[Amy Dempsey]

I'm thinking, like, first of all, do they. Like, this is so weird. Did they know that I was looking into this stuff? You know, am I being targeted?

[Roman Mars]

Amy called the city who said, ma'am, please, you probably just have a broken handle. And they sent some workers out to.

[Amy Dempsey]

Fix it, and they replaced the lid on my bin as a precaution, even though they couldn't find anything wrong with it.

[Roman Mars]

She also wrote to the raccoon expert, Suzanne McDonald, who was thrilled because she's always secretly been on Team Raccoon.

[Amy Dempsey]

She wrote back almost immediately and said, that is awesome. And she said, I'm going to loan you a trail camera, and you have to see how they're doing it. So I get the camera from Suzanne. We meet up at the zoo one day. I go to our local grocery store, and I get a couple of chickens, put the chicken in the green bin, rubbed some of the chicken grease all over the green bin. The first night, raccoons did not come. The second night, I went out to the front porch, actually, with my toddler. We peeked around the corner, and my daughter said, uh, oh, the bin was down. It was a mess. I took the camera upstairs and pressed play on the video that I captured. It's almost as though the raccoons knew what I was doing. And they were like, let's give her a really good shot here. This one is going to go viral. Camera is pointing at the bins, and then all of a sudden, this mama raccoon comes skulking out, and she just pulls the bin down, like. And she gets out of the way. Like, at this point, you can tell she knows what she's doing. Like, she's not going to stand in the way and get crushed by the bin. No, she's going to pull it at the exact right angle, and it just falls down with, like, a bang. And turns around and looks at the camera as if to say, watch this. And then she turns the handle and just open, like, just turns it. Yoink. Opens it just like I would. And in they go.

[Roman Mars]

The key seemed to be knocking down the bin, which made the handle much easier to turn.

[Amy Dempsey]

When it's on the ground, you can just kind of pull on it, like, as if you're pulling a lever. You Know, you can almost bat your paws at it or, like, pull it to the side.

[Roman Mars]

On August 30, 2018, Amy published an article in the Toronto Star with her video. And as these things tend to do in Toronto, it went viral. Thousands of Torontonians watched as the protagonist handily pulled down the bin and then, flashing her glowing eyes at the camera, showed off how easily she could open it. Amy got a bunch of emails and comments on the article, people saying that this was happening to them, too. But the city maintained they were getting relatively few complaints overall. When Amy told Dennis Monacier from Rarick Pacific that the raccoons were getting into the bin that his company designed, he decided to pay her a house call.

[Dennis Monastir]

You know, I personally wanted to go out there myself to inspect the container and to do some torque force testing on the handle itself.

[Roman Mars]

Some heroes don't wear capes. They wear polo shirts with the company logo on the breast pocket.

[Amy Dempsey]

The day Dennis came over, my neighbor Mike came over as soon as he saw this guy in my driveway working on the green bin. But Mike had no idea that this is the green bin guy.

[Dennis Monastir]

It seemed like there was a gang of neighbors that came up all of a sudden out of nowhere, and it was just like, oh, we have, you know, we have some problems with the raccoons getting into our bins.

[Amy Dempsey]

They're getting into my bin, they're getting into everybody's bin, and he's just ripping on the green bins and the waste of money.

[Roman Mars]

Dennis took it all like a champ. He tightened up everyone's handles so they'd be particularly hard for little raccoon paws to turn. But it hasn't solved the problem. Having accepted defeat, Amy now keeps her bins tied to a wall so raccoons can't knock them over. And she can't help but wonder how soon before this knowledge about how to open the bins spreads to the rest of raccoon nation.

[Dr. Suzanne McDonald]

Raccoons don't teach each other these things. That's called social learning. And even most monkeys don't do that. And so it's not like this innovation is going to spread across the city.

[Roman Mars]

Suzanne McDonald doesn't think most raccoons in Toronto currently have what it takes to get into the new green compost bins. That perfect combination of strength, intelligence, and determination. Amy just happened to encounter an extra gifted one.

[Dr. Suzanne McDonald]

We call her the genius raccoon because I think it's amazing that she did it.

[Roman Mars]

Suzanne finally finished her dead raccoon study, and Toronto's favorite frenemy is as fat as ever. She thinks that's because even though most of them can't get into the compost, they've moved on to a different solution. The good old fashioned garbage.

[Dr. Suzanne McDonald]

Our raccoons are not starving to death.

[Roman Mars]

That'S for sure, but she doesn't rule out that in a far off future we might end up creating an uber raccoon, one like Amy's that can get into just about anything. She's studied raccoons in cities, and they are, on the whole, smarter than their rural counterparts. Counterparts? Urban raccoons are constantly having new problems placed in front of them to solve, and they keep figuring them out. And Suzanne and Dennis both tell people that the green bins were never advertised as raccoon proof, only raccoon resistant. Nothing is raccoon proof, they say, which is a small concession that while the front of the line is holding for now, the war against raccoon continues. After the break, more raccoon hijinks with Kurt Kovasted Anthropic's Claude family of models is AI backed by uncompromising integrity. Claude is run by responsible leadership who have an ethical approach to the development of AI while providing strong data security and putting humanity first. Whether you're brainstorming alone or building with a team, Claude can help. Many companies already build with Claude, so why not work with Claude to help you do your best work too? Claude can perform complex cognitive tasks transcending simple pattern recognition or text generation. Use Claude to transcribe and analyze almost any static image, translate between various languages in real time, or practice grammar through Claude's multilingual processing capabilities. Claude can handle cogeneration too. Want to take Claude with you? The Claude app is available on Apple and Android app stores. Discover how Claude can transform your work and business at anthropic.com Claude that's anthropic a N-T-H-R-O-P-I-C.com Claude C-L-A-U-D E Ever wonder how much your personal data is out there on the Internet for anyone to see? More than you think. Your name, contact info, Social Security number and home address, Even information about your family members, all being compiled by data brokers and sold online. But now you can protect your privacy with Deleteme, a subscription service that removes your personal info from hundreds of data brokers. Sign up and provide Deleteme with exactly what information you want deleted, and their experts take it from there. Deleteme sends you regularly personalized privacy reports showing what info they found, where they found it and what they removed. I signed up last week and they've automatically removed me from 74 data brokers, companies that I have never even heard of. If I were to try to delete myself from all these data brokers, if I even knew how to find them, it would have taken, by their estimate, about 10 hours. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Del Deleteme now at a special discount for our listeners today. Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan by texting invisible to 64000 text invisible to 64000 that's invisible to 64000. Message and data rates may apply. See Terms for details.

[Amy Dempsey]

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[Roman Mars]

Is it being able to keep your loved ones close or travel somewhere far away?

[Amy Dempsey]

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[Kurt Kohlstedt]

As.

[Roman Mars]

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[Kurt Kohlstedt]

Oh yeah, instantly. You know, the local news is there covering the story on the scene in Minnesota. But I'm out here, you know, researching the actual building that the raccoon is climbing and I got super into it I was analyzing the facade and the materials. I started diagramming and then deconstructing the route that this raccoon took to the top.

[Roman Mars]

And so if you want like a, like, straight up Kennedy assassination style deconstruction of that whole saga, you can check out our website. But before we get too far off track, Kurt is here today with a story of a different famous raccoon from nearly a century ago, one that eventually resided in a particularly famous work of American architecture, the White House.

[Kurt Kohlstedt]

Oh, yes. History's not exactly full of famous raccoons, but there's this one in particular that really stands out, especially around Thanksgiving. Her name was Rebecca, and in 1926, she was sent to President Calvin Coolidge as a gift from a constituent in Mississippi. But this raccoon wasn't meant to be a pet. The idea was actually that she'd be served up as part of the holiday feast.

[Roman Mars]

Which is not the most traditional Thanksgiving meal.

[Kurt Kohlstedt]

Oh, no. I mean, not. Not today, at least. But a century ago, wild animals were much more common to see on, you know, dinner plates. Meals with duck or turtle or possum were pretty typical. And in some cases, there were even regional delicacies. And then also, you know, sending animals as food to the White House for the holidays was a pretty popular tradition.

[Roman Mars]

So the president getting sent a raccoon wasn't maybe not that odd, but him keeping him as a pet was out of the ordinary, right?

[Kurt Kohlstedt]

I mean, that's a little bit more unusual. When we think about presidents and Thanksgiving, we usually think of that turkey pardoning tradition, and that's about it. But for Coolidge, it wasn't that weird. He and his wife had tons of pets. They had cats and dogs and birds, of course, but also these really exotic ones over the years, they got wallabies and a bear, a pair of lion cubs, even a pygmy hippo. Most of these, you know, as gifts, often from, you know, foreign dignitaries. Who knew that the Coolidges were really into weird animals.

[Roman Mars]

But I'm still having a hard time picturing, like, a pygmy hippo running around the White House, though, right?

[Kurt Kohlstedt]

Well, some of them they, you know, regifted to zoos that could take care of them. But the Coolidges did keep a lot of them as pets, and they formed this kind of weird White House menagerie, or as one reporter called it, the Pennsylvania Avenue Zoo.

[Roman Mars]

And so what about Rebecca the raccoon?

[Kurt Kohlstedt]

Well, she became part of the first family, essentially. Grace, the first lady, would walk her around on a leash during the day, and then at night, she'd curl up with Calvin on his lap next to the fireplace.

[Roman Mars]

That sounds like a pretty good pet.

[Kurt Kohlstedt]

Well, yeah, I mean, that's one side of it. The other side is that she was still a wild animal. And she became kind of infamous for, you know, chewing her way out of her enclosures, and she'd wriggle out of the collars they put on her, and she'd claw up the furniture. In the White House, there's these stories of the Secret Service having to chase her around while she runs up trees and. Yeah, so she was a bit of a handful, too, but, you know, she got to hang out in the White House sometimes. And the rest of the time, she got this little wooden house that they put up for her on the south lawn.

[Roman Mars]

So she's a little bit of a hassle, but she seemed to have a pretty sweet life. Rebecca the raccoon.

[Kurt Kohlstedt]

Yeah, she did. And she lived with the Coolidges for a while, and then the first couple handed her off to a zoo. And there were rumors at the time that maybe Rebecca bit Calvin because one day he came out with a bandage on his hand. But Grace later wrote very fondly of this White House raccoon. According to her, Rebecca enjoyed nothing better than being placed in a bathtub with a little water in it and given a cake of soap with which to play. In this fashion, she would amuse herself for an hour or more.

[Roman Mars]

Wow. All right. Thank you, Kurt.

[Kurt Kohlstedt]

Oh, yeah, of course.

[Roman Mars]

That episode originally aired in 2018, and as of this airing, Toronto has yet to declare victory in the war on raccoons. 99% invisible was produced this week by Katie Mingle, based on Amy Dempsey's epic raccoon story from the Toronto Star. You should really read the whole thing. It's great. We'll have a link on the website. Original tech production by Sharif Youssef Remix by Martin Gonzalez Music by Swan Riao this episode is dedicated to our digital director, Kurt Kohlstedt, who enjoys nothing better than to be placed in a bathtub with a little water in it and given a cake of soap with which to play. Kathy Tew is our executive producer. Delaney hall is our senior editor. Taylor Shedrick is our intern. The rest of the team includes Chris Berube, Jason De Leon, Emmett Fitzgerald, Christopher Johnson, Vivian Lay Losh, Madonn, Joe Rosenberg, Gabriella Gladney, Kelly Prime, Nina Patak, Jacob Medina Gleason, and me, roman Mars. The 99% invisible logo was created by Stefan Lawrence. We are part of the Stitcher and Sirius XM podcast family, now headquartered six blocks north in the Pandora building in beautiful uptown Oakland, California. You can find us on our Discord server and also, we just joined Bluesky. I don't know. We're gonna give it a shot. Let's just try to make it good, okay? You can find links to those social media sites, plus some great pictures of the First Lady, Grace Coolidge, and her raccoon friend Rebecca, as well as every past episode of 99PI. At 99PI, do you ever watch TV and think, wow, I'm really good at this? You're right. With rewards on sling watching 30 minutes of TV daily gives you chances to win up to $10,000 in cash and other monthly prizes. Sign up for Sling or Stream for.

[Kurt Kohlstedt]

Free with Sling Free Stream to get.

[Roman Mars]

Rewarded for watching TV. Sling lets you do that. Visit sling.com to learn more and get started. No purchase necessary. FOIP we're prohibited by law.

[Kurt Kohlstedt]

Visit sling.com for more details.

[Roman Mars]

Hello beautiful nerds, It's Roman here. If you're loving 99% invisible and want to hear new episodes, ad free and get access to exclusive bonus content like AMAs with me and producers on staff, subscribe to SiriusXM podcast plus on Apple podcasts to start your free trial today.