Are raccoons intelligent enough to be malicious?

I don’t think so.
They can be quite vicious if cornered, they are good survivalists.

The raccoon experts I have talked to have said that raccoons are mostly not dangerous except to your chickens or when cornered, surprised, or when you seem to them to be getting too close to their young or you get between young and their mother.

However some raccoons can become hostile towards people, when humans have attacked them before.

Or, of course, a rabid raccoon.

Raccoons are curious and will mess around with objects sometimes. My mom had some bring rocks to a water dish and would wash the rocks, apparently just as an interesting thing to do.

Raccoons are plenty smart and do various interesting things. I wouldn’t say ”smart enough to be malicious” (being malicious doesn’t seem very smart to me). In fact, I’d suggest that not antagonizing the raccoons unless really necessary is probably the smartest policy, as antagonizing and throwing things at them has been noted as behavior that can cause them to become aggressive towards humans.

Mammal offspring learn their behavior from observation; mostly of their own elders, but also from the environment they live with.
I think it would be more likely they see you spending time with those things, so they do too, on the off chance it will lead either to food, or entertainment.
They simply don’t understand the desired end result.

Well, if I could find a solution that would satisfy them without them harming other things, or inviting thirty of their relatives I would still welcome them.

I discovered, for instance, that putting sugar water out for them has kept them from tearing up the hummingbird feeders, and pouring sugar water on the leaves and they will eat leaves covered with sugar water. But they are still destructive and kill birds and eggs.

Raccoons will dig up plants and lawns looking for grubs and moths.

I lived in a house in a semi rural neighborhood half a block from a large open space. The raccoons would come at night and roll up the sod almost like they were going to steal it and put it elsewhere. They were after moths.

Yes. They are mean. Cute, but mean.

Vermin.

That is all.

Eggs are a treat, and centuries haven’t changed that. I can’t imagine any way to keep them off the nests unless you provide several bird houses. It is their nature to hunt, scavenge, and loot. They don’t do any of that to be evil or vindictive. They do it for survival. Finding food in a variety of ways and places ensures survival of future generations.

The reason polar bears are facing extinction is because they have a narrow list of options taught from one generation to the next. If they were more adaptive they could survive in warmer climates.
Raccoons protect themselves from loss of environment with their variety and observation.

To me the BIG mistake was feeding them. You taught a clan of smart animals to look to you for nutrition, and it will require generations for those memories of the “good times” to evaporate. I have a friend who has been engaged in a long standing war with the raccoons in his neighborhood. The animals discovered his cat door and periodically pillage his house. He refuses to eliminate or lock the cat door, but has instead taken to pellet gun ambushes which I think futile.

Get a cougar to pee on all the trees around your property.

I doubt I could train a cougar to do this.

They used to sell animal scents at hunting stores to train dogs or cover human scent. The glandular cougar scent and urine would probably do the task if someone would sell it.

How about me? could I just pee all over the yard?

Sure, you could, but they consider you a provider, not a predator.
But, if it keeps you entertained~

You can get composted lion manure which would do the job nicely. This product says it’s meant to deter cats, but I guarantee you it will send raccoons packing as well. https://thescaredycat.com/silent-roar-lion-manure-review/

. Lots of times your local zoo will sell composted lion manure.

And if you could get wolf manure, you’d probably be just as happy

I certainly would!

I prefer to picture the man trying to tell a cougar where to pee.
It’s a good laugh.

you know that by cougar, I mean a big cat, not an older woman, right?

I think they have the intelligence to be malicious or at least vindictive.

When I was a lad I recall going to a small “zoo” in a town close to where we lived. Most of the animals were native to Texas and one of the cages contained raccoons. I remember my dad giving one particular ‘coon a sugar cube which he promptly took to the water bowl and washed. It melted away. He stared at his hands, knowing it had been there and dug through the water bowl searching for his treat before coming back to us. Dad gave him another and the performance was repeated. When the raccoon came back a third time and held out his paw, dad dropped a third sugar cube into it and I have this vivid memory of that raccoon glaring at my dad, looked at the cube, looked at his water bowl and then proceeding to eat the sugar cube.
Several months later we returned to the park and zoo. Dad again gave the raccoon a sugar cube and he just took it and ate it without going to wash it. I swear that little bandit was gloating while he was eating it.

You were feeding raccoons? What?! As you found out, they can be very aggressive. They can be rabbid too, although there isn’t much rabies where you live. I looked it up once when a raccoon started hanging around my property before sunset.

Like many animals, I think they are more aggressive when they have new babies to protect and feed.

So many violent stories.
There are lots of raccoon attacks on YouTube.
It is so weird for me. I have never been attacked, and I have encountered lots of them, including babies with mom, and young on their own.
I saw a neighbor fighting one once. I laughed. He was in his pajamas, try to get a huge coon out of his garbage can. It was quite the battle. Our neighbor was the president of the largest bank in the county. It was too comical to see him out there yelling at that stubborn invader.
When I lived in Omaha, I put all our leftovers out at the back corner of the yard. All sorts of critters dug out their favorite bits of whatever was there. Never was anything left by morning. In the winter I would see raccoon tracks in my yard, but never at my trash can. They hit my neighbor’s garbage regularly.
I never hand fed them though, only the deer, squirrels, and turkeys. Part of the reason was owls. We had lots of owls there, at least two kinds, so hand feeding nocturnal critters would just set them up for the owls.

^You weren’t far off with cougar pee. Fox urine will deter racoons. It will need to be reapplied often though.

Can they be malicious? Well. They can think of you as a threat to their territory, and act accordingly. But, I think the word malicious implies too much cognitive ability…

… or too human a relationship style. (Do people really think of maliciousness as a triumph of cognition?)

Well, living in harmony is certainly a triumph of cognition, so for humans at least, there’s hope.

meanwhile, the raccoons kill the bird parents for their eggs, and demolish bird feeders and hummingbird feeders for their contents, and slash local dogs and cats. And if I deter them, they will destroy everything I work for. The chipmunks eat the seeds, the vegetables, the bulbs, the roots of everything.

I provide all their needs and all I want is harmony in nature.

@Yellowdog There is harmony in nature; it just doesn’t meet your anthropocentric ego’s structure of the harmony.

Raccoons have eaten eggs and attacked birds for millennia; that is part of their higher purpose.

Oh! Well, thanks for educating me about my huge anthropocentric ego! I’ll go eat some coon. Last time I checked, I’m top of the food chain.

@Yellowdog Tell that to a cougar or a grizzly bear. They are apex predators.

Neh—only because we give them rights.

You got my instincts stirred up now. I am wishing I had a cougar, so I could boss it around the back yard, assert my superiority over nature’s tough guys.

Just know your furry and feathered neighbors.
Some here know that I have kept praying mantis pets. Something I have noticed about each of them, is they come out from their hiding places and get real chummy shortly before they die. I believe nature has somehow engeineered this behavior in some critters, even on very low rungs of the food chain, so their demise can feed a hungry critter, rather than be wasted.

It is a repeatedly proven fact that if predators are removed from their habitat, things get unbalanced and out of control. Note, removing wolves from Yellowstone. Lesson learned, wolves from Canada relocated to repopulate the area.

If you are going to love wildlife, you can’t be picky and exclude some major link(s) in the chain.
If you feel quite strongly about robins, get a birdhouse or two. Find what will best attract the birds you want. For instance, I am a wren fan. Their house requires a very small entry, and a peg under the entry. They prefer a good camouflage of vines or leafy tree branches.

You will not stop the raccoons, unless you completely wipe them out in your area.
Make a compromise. Make certain places in your garden coon specific. Leave them little treats they have to work for. Make it doable, but challenging. Maybe put a mirror near one, so you can observe their reactions.
Like children, instead of just beating them when you find them naughty, distract them with okay activities. Put up a teeter totter they must cross to reach a special treat, but lined up so they have to line up just right to get the treat. They will mess with that until they get it perfected.
I bet if we urge @LuckyGuy hard enough, he could come up with a blueprint.
Chose three or four spots you are willing to give over to them, and use a spray or other deterrent for other areas.
Raccoons like to hunt, dig, probe for their goodies. If you just toss them food, you become a patsy in their sight. Make them work for it.