B.C. researchers hunting for Vancouver backyards to run IQ tests on trash pandas

Just how smart is the average city trash panda?

This is the question researchers at the University of British Columbia are hoping to answer, and they are asking for help from Vancouver residents to find out.

Hannah Griebling, a doctoral student in the UBC faculty of forestry, and Dr. Sarah Benson-Amram, assistant professor in the faculties of science and forestry, want to test the cognitive abilities of raccoons as part of an ongoing university project that explores how animals adapt to urban environments.

To do this, they need people living within city limits to offer up their backyards as testing grounds.

“We are very interested in trying to understand how raccoons are able to live in cities alongside people, and we think that cognition, or their intelligence, may be one of the main reasons why they’re so successful,” said Benson-Amram, speaking Tuesday on CBC’s The Early Edition.

Benson-Amram said one of the main project goals is to help reduce raccoon contact with humans by learning more about them and how they learn to help design more effective mitigation strategies.

And raccoon contact with humans can be a significant problem — from strewing trash to drawing blood.

Earlier this month, raccoons attacked two Vancouver residents, Jake Moss and Emma Yendole, who were walking dogs within hours of each other in the west side Kitsilano neighbourhood. Both people suffered injuries, and Moss’s Shih Tzu lost an eye.

Yendole, who suffered leg lacerations that required stitches, said she has lived in the area for 20 years and never experienced such behaviour.

“I’ve seen raccoons before, many times, and they just kinda skulk away. But this time, it was vicious,” said Yendole.

Benson-Amram said if animals are being fed by people, they become more aggressive toward humans, and this could be what sparked these attacks. And the good news is, if you partake in the project, researchers will do all the animal handling and testing for you, and the data gleaned could help prevent future attacks.

The UBC team will first set live, humane traps to capture a raccoon which they will then sedate and fit with a microchip to track the animal before releasing it. A series of challenges will be set up in the yard, and a night vision camera installed to observe.

“We want to assess what we call domain-general cognition, so you can sort of think of it as an IQ test for raccoons,” said Benson-Amram.

The tests are designed to assess spatial memory, learning, self-control and behavioural flexibility. One test involves installing feeding dispensers that recognize a raccoon’s microchip and dole out food to see how well the animal remembers to return to it. Researchers will switch on and off different dispensers to see how quickly raccoons adapt to new feed sources.

Another experiment involves a pitcher of water where the levels are too low for the animal to reach it and drink. Multiple objects (pebbles, a large stone and a floating ball) are put out to see if the raccoon will discover that by placing them in the pitcher, the water will rise.

While the obvious choice would be the large stone, Benson-Amram said raccoons were observed choosing the floating ball and using their weight to push it up and down in the pitcher for successful results.

“Every time we’ve tested them so far on a task, they’ve done really well, but they’ve done really well in surprising ways. They’re very curious, they’re exploratory, and they solve problems in unexpected ways,” said Benson-Amram.

She said there is little scientific literature about raccoon cognition, and by learning more, scientists will be better equipped to promote harmonious coexistence with humans.

If you are interested in volunteering your yard, email urban.wildlife@ubc.ca.

The Early Edition9: UBC research project looking for backyards in Vancouver to study raccoon intelligence. 

The Urban Wildlife Project at the University of B.C. wants to better understand the cognitive behaviours of raccoons by setting up “tasks” for them to complete in Vancouver residents’ backyards. Sarah Benson-Amram, assistant professor in the UBC Department of Zoology and Department of Forest Conservation Science, discusses the impetus behind this research project and its goals.