Video

Raccoon - ASL / Audio Description

Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail

Transcript

These small mammals have a big reputation. Raccoons are known for their ringed tails, black masks, and curiosity. They use their front paws with 5 digits to feel the world around them, especially when searching for food in hidden places they cannot see, like in water, and in nooks and crannies. Raccoons thrive in places where surface water provides the habitat for what they love to eat. Raccoons are not picky. They eat fruits and nuts and animals including frogs, turtles, invertebrates, and reptiles. They can climb trees where even bird eggs and nestlings are on the menu! Their generalist food habits make them an important part of the ecosystem and they are also a meal for predators like coyotes, bobcats, and owls which also thrive in the riparian forests. Indigenous Peoples of North America, like the Tohono O'odham, have long hunted raccoons for their fur and meat. It is highly likely that the colonists moving along the Santa Cruz River encountered raccoons or at least saw their human-like pawprints in the mud.

Description

ASL / Audio Description for Footprints exhibit at the Anza Trail Cultural History Park in Tucson, AZ (RACCOON)

Duration

1 minute, 13 seconds

Credit

AZFLIS and NPS

Date Created

01/05/2023

Copyright and Usage Info