Image of Northern Raccoon

Description:

Raccoon (Procyon lotor) 2 November 2015: On this 2015 Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) we observed and documented a Raccoon (Procyon lotor) that had ended up by the side of Mingo Road near the intersection of the 700 block of Schmitz Avenue in Denton, Texas, lying prostrate on the pavement, its body gone limp and lifeless. And there it had surely lain for more than a day and perhaps two or three. Because its body had been thrown to the side of the road and laid partly off of the paved road and part still on the paved side of the narrow bicycle path that's provided on this city road but a stone's throw from the old downtown area in the city and next to the Texas Woman's University (TWU) golf course, because this was the case its body had not been further mangled by the heavy traffic that transits Mingo Road on a daily basis. But little good did that do. The raccoon must have been wanting to cross from one side of the creek that runs underneath Mingo Road at this point to the other and why it didn't choose to do so using the underground passage only it knew. Perhaps it was flooded due to recent rains or bottled up with debris. As Raccoons go this was not the largest specimen we've seen but it was either a female or a not fully mature male judging by its size and assuming that among Raccoons males tend to grow larger than females, which is not the case with every species as we know. The speed limit at this site was 30 miles per hour, which is a nearly impossible speed limit to maintain on city streets given the engines in today's vehicles but provides manna from heaven arguably for ticketing police departments seeking to bolster their budgets or the city's. Such concerns of course are of no interest to Raccoons and other wildlife killed by motor vehicle traffic. May this particular Raccoon RIP.