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Damned coons

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PBS Nature RACCOON NATION

Feb 07, 2012

Geography: The raccoon is native to North America and can be found throughout the United States, except for parts of the Rocky Mountains, and southwestern states like Nevada, Utah, and Arizona.

 

New World Encyclopedia:

New habitats that have recently been occupied by raccoons (aside from urban areas) include mountain ranges, such as the Western Rocky Mountains, prairies, and coastal marshes. After a population explosion starting in the 1940s, the estimated number of raccoons in North America in the late 1980s was 15 to 20 times higher than in the 1930s, when raccoons were comparatively rare. Urbanization, the expansion of agriculture, deliberate introductions, and the extermination of natural predators of the raccoon have probably caused this increase in abundance and distribution.[5]

 

 

I believe they've always been in wet areas of AZ, but their range and population has exploded. I'm trying to find an article I read last night published by the U of A regarding 19th century fur trappers in AZ unable to locate raccoons here.

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All over Munds park, back in the day when no one was up here during the winters we used to have a coon killing contest in the PARK........ My dad never was one for rules, quite odd because he is a lawyer.

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Wash next to house on Tatum and Dynamite and a dead one on Cave Creek about Beardsley.

I have seen coons & badgers hit right there also

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I have seen them just about all over the state but usually near a water source. Seen coata mundies around Tucson and up at Apache lake. Seen otters on Bartlett. Had a beaver near the Phoenix airport in a small lake we used to own. Never know how they travel around.

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Wash next to house on Tatum and Dynamite and a dead one on Cave Creek about Beardsley.

I have seen coons & badgers hit right there also

We had a big ol badger hit in the road just a few hundred yards north of my coon sighting on 163rd
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I checked "the" reference for mammals in Arizona here at work. Here is what Mammals of Arizona by Hoffmeister has to say:

 

post-2759-0-88932300-1474322032_thumb.jpg

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