Junk Food Is Bad for You. Is It Bad for Raccoons?
I was in college when I saw my first truly chonky raccoon. It was perched on the rim of a trash can, a half-eaten tuna-salad sandwich clutched between its forepaws, its whiskers pinwheeling as it chewed. From across the quad, the raccoon fixed me with a beady-eyed stare of reproach, as if daring me to steal its already-filched fish. But I was much more interested in the creature, which looked twice as big as any raccoon I’d seen before. It was also a wild animal that had chosen a very unwild meal. And I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a link between the two.
As cities have grown and green spaces have shrunk, many wild animals, especially those in the Western world, have that . Squirrels snarf , and abscond with ; subway rats chow down on , while seagulls have ripped and even a straight out of human mouths. For at least some creatures, the menu changes seem to come with consequences. Raccoons that spend their days feasting on trash have , and than their wilder counterparts; bears that forage on human food . Vulture chicks nourished with scraps from landfills have in their blood. And when researchers repeatedly toss to crows, the birds’ babies leave the nest chubbier, and with higher cholesterol.
