Can a Raccoon Jump? How High, How Far, and What Stops One

Yes — about 4 feet up and 4 to 5 feet across. But the jump is almost never how a raccoon beat you. Climbing is, and the two problems have completely different solutions.

The numbers

A raccoon is the worst jumper on that list and still the hardest to exclude. That gap is the whole point: you cannot solve a raccoon by adding height.

Why climbing beats jumping

Three pieces of anatomy do the work:

• Front paws with five long, unwebbed fingers. They grip, they turn handles, they undo latches, and they hook into anything with a lip. A raccoon’s forepaw has roughly four times the sensory receptors of its hind foot.
• Hind feet that rotate 180 degrees. This is the unusual one. It lets a raccoon reverse its ankles and come down a tree or a post head-first, which very few mammals manage. Most animals that can climb up something are stuck on it; a raccoon is not.
• Enough weight to be deliberate. At 10 to 25 pounds it is not going to leap between branches like a squirrel, so it does not try. It works its way along.

The 5-foot rule for roofs

The horizontal figure is the one worth memorising, because attic entry is where raccoons become expensive.

Anything within about 5 feet of your eaves is a launch pad:

• Overhanging branches — the usual culprit
• A fence running up to the house
• A woodpile, a garbage bin, an AC unit or a water butt against the wall
• A shed or garage roof at a lower level
• A downspout, which is climbed rather than jumped

Cut branches back to 6 to 8 feet rather than exactly 5. The extra margin covers a running start and a determined animal, and branches grow back.

What actually works

Grip is the variable, not height. Every measure in the effective half of that table works by removing something to hold on to at the top, or by removing the reason to come at all.

Securing the reward

A fence buys you time. Food decides whether the raccoon keeps trying.

• Latch the bins, or strap the lids with a bungee. A raccoon will open an unlatched lid, and it will tip a light bin over to do it. Weighted or locking lids are worth the money.
• No pet food outside overnight, ever. This is the most common single attractant.
• Pick up fallen fruit and clean under bird feeders.
• Cover or secure the compost, particularly anything with cooked food or meat in it.
• Close the crawl space and shed gaps — with hardware cloth, not chicken wire, which they tear.

If one is already in the attic

Do not seal the hole first. That is the mistake that turns a wildlife problem into a smell problem.

1. Find every entry point, not just the obvious one.
2. Establish whether there are young. Spring and early summer nearly always means kits.
3. Fit a one-way door on the main entrance so the adult can leave and cannot return.
4. Seal everything with hardware cloth and metal flashing once you are certain the space is empty.
5. Then remove the climbing route that got them there, or the next raccoon repeats it.