Just What We Needed: Raccoons Are Robbing Banks Now
The one thing we really wanted to avoid in 2020
Nobody’s going to argue that this has been a perfect year, but I think we were all hoping to be able to add 2020 to a long string of international successes in avoiding the calamity of raccoon bank robbers. But with just over two months to go, the unthinkable has happened: An ATM user in Redwood City, California, spotted two masked bandits marauding inside a bank after hours and alerted the local authorities, including the Peninsula Humane Society & SPCA.
It goes without saying, of course, that because of their naturally occurring “bank-robber” masks, raccoons are the absolute worst possible animal to discover the subversive thrill of plundering a local finance house or knocking over the town’s savings and loan association. The patch of black fur around the eyes of the common raccoon (procyon lotor) is thought to provide protection from the sun’s glare, but it has long been known to science that it is also a dangerously effective disguise for desperados and footpads, and it has only been a matter of luck that, until now, North American raccoons have shown only a passing interest in…
