Yup, Southerners Sure Do Eat Raccoons!

A recent AP article, “What’s For Dinner? How About Raccoon?”, highlights the fact that eating raccoons is a large part of the culture and tradition of many people in the southern U.S.  And it isn’t just about habit, apparently.  Those who eat it regularly say that ‘coon meat is ‘just plain good’!

There are a number of benefits to a culture that embraces eating natural, wild animals as a major part of its diet.

“Raccoon meat is some of the healthiest meat you can eat,” says Jeff Beringer, a furbearer resource biologist with the Missouri Department of Conservation.

“During grad school, my roommate and I ate 32 coons one winter. It was all free, and it was really good. If you think about being green and eating organically, raccoon meat is the ultimate organic food,” with no steroids, no antibiotics, no growth hormones.

In addition, the raccoon meat market helps trappers obtain an added value for the coons that they trap for fur, and raccoon populations remain healthy and relatively disease-free when kept in balance with their habitat via sustained harvest.

In the wild, raccoons typically live five or six years. Populations that grow too dense can be decimated by disease, especially when temperatures drop, Beringer says.

“The animals huddle together, passing on the infections. In the winter, we sometimes have massive die-offs. If we can control the fluctuations in the populations by hunting and trapping, we can have healthier animals.”

The demand for raccoon meat continues to be high in Missouri, and eating varmint meat is apparently on the rise across the pond in Britian as well.  Perhaps a meat market for ‘coons can be developed in other parts of the country?  I’d be willing to try it.

Read the full article here.