Raccoons eat mice, rats, birds, snakes, lizards, snails, grasshoppers, bugs, dog food, they pick and eat fruit, berries, nuts, acorns, beans, dandelion blossoms, bread and wild grain seeds, wild spinich, dried fruit, grapes, and veggies...climb trees for bird eggs, swim for fish, dig for worms, they like garbage and any food scraps AND sometimes eat plain paper. I adopted a little orphan and she grew up being fed by me but her INSTINCTS kicked in and she started scavenging for all the items listed above without anyone teaching her. They are resourceful intelligent animals who adapt quickly and I don't believe that urban raccoons cannot survive if released in the wild because they "don't know how to get food." Finding food is their specialty. This (my) raccoon pictured in the photo can smell a bug or worm underground and will suddenly dig and get it out. Soon she actually preferred her worms, snails, and bugs to eating any dogfood. No one taught her that.
I never taught her to eat the bugs she loves. She even created a burrow cave on her own and collected kids socks and torn up stuffed animals to line her den with warms soft bedding. I didn't teach her that either. And she hibernates when it's very cold. I didn't teach her that either. It just comes natural.
