How Long Do Raccoons Live? Several years and during their life they can learn many things including how to break into your attic. Raccoons are one of the most well known mammals out there. They are mostly known for their mask like fur on their face and they have been stereotyped as the robbers of the animal kingdom owing to their nature to steal from humans. But it is the raccoons exceptional ability to adapt that has seen them grow in numbers today and not be threatened by rapid urbanization. So how long do they live and do their reproductive habits have anything to do with their high numbers today?Let us first get the primary fact out of the way. A captive raccoon can live for more than 20 years. But, most of the raccoons in the world are not in captive, so what about the others? The average life expectancy of a raccoon in the wild is 1.8 to 3.1 years. That is a huge decline in life expectancy from their captive counterparts. The reasons for this is mainly traffic, hunting and weather severity. Road kills and raccoon hunting can account for up to 90% of all deaths in some places. Cold, long winters can also lead a motherless raccoon to starvation and death. Sometimes diseases like canine distemper are the cause of death and can even wipe out a whole community with its epidemic like spread.
Even though raccoons usually like to mate in times of increasing daylight, January-March, their ability to adapt is seen here as well as mating seasons and times may differ from region to region. This along with other adaptive measures such as larger litters where there is more mortality rate allow the raccoon to thrive. Their gestation period is usually 63-65 days and they have a litter of about 3-5 kits and only one litter of kits are given birth to each year by a female. They take care of their offspring for about 16 weeks after which the male moves out while the female may stay close to its mother.
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