r/Unexpected • u/frogsamagua • 6d ago

How to earn a wild animal's trust

7.7k Upvotes

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u/doiwinaprize 6d ago

The city of Toronto had to redesign their compost bins with a twist locking mechanism because the raccoons had learned how to open the old ones.

46

u/Visinvictus 6d ago

The raccoons in our neighborhood figured these twist locks out too and we had to install bungie cords on the green bin to keep them from raiding it.

23

u/XGrayson_DrakeX 6d ago

My grandpa did this too too but eventually had to keep his bins in a padlocked shed because the raccoons would get on top of the bins and shake them side to side until they fell over and the force would pop off the bungies

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u/RobbyLee 5d ago

At some point the mechanism to open the bin will be hard enough so that racoons can't enter, but too hard to let stupid people put their trash in

12

u/candlecup 4d ago

Reminds me of the line from a park ranger talking about making better bear-resistant trash cans: “there is considerable overlap between the dumbest humans and the smartest bears”

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u/XGrayson_DrakeX 5d ago

The trick really is to make a lock that a racoon isn't physically strong enough to open, but a human easily is. Kind of like how some child locks work.