Toronto is nearing the end of its transition to new and improved raccoon-proof green bins. My neighbourhood finally received ours on Thursday and everyone in the city should have them by the end of 2017.

I’ll be glad to abandon my weekly ritual of shovelling up tipped over, pored-through green bin contents. But part of me worries: Will the raccoons, perhaps dependent on the old, easy-access bins, now go hungry?

Unlike most people I know, I have a soft spot for raccoons. This is partly because (and in spite) of the fact that one summer, almost 20 years ago, I volunteered at the Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary in Muskoka and raised 80 orphaned baby raccoons until they were releasable adolescents.

Sure I know their downsides (I had to shovel soiled hay out of their cages every morning). But I appreciate their presence in my neighbourhood far more than I disdain it. In fact, other city dwellers’ contempt for them often befuddles me.

Most people know raccoons are inquisitive, intelligent creatures — it is, after all, why they get into our green bins in the first place. These qualities, however, fail to charm, as they fall short of overriding the irritation inspired by the messes raccoons make in our driveways and laneways. There doesn’t seem to be recognition that we created this problem; like bears that become “nuisances” once accustomed to outside dumps, we in urban centres waste mountains of food each day and have left it sufficiently accessible to raccoons that they have proliferated due to its abundance.

I view scavenging by raccoons as part of the urban food chain — an elegant form of trophic sequencing. Just as hyenas (I wish there were more popular scavengers to cite, but they’re all kind of scrappy) clean up after a lion-kill, raccoons root through our compost bins, completing the corncob that wasn’t nibbled to the core or the stew tossed after sitting in the fridge six days. There is efficiency in this process.

In my densely kid-populated neighbourhood, people frequently cite the health risks that raccoons pose to children. To confirm my hunch that this rap is likely overblown, I contacted Toronto Public Health and inquired about the incidence of raccoon-transmitted diseases over the last five years. They got right back to me (I imagine it didn’t require much research): In Toronto there have been no reports of locally acquired rabies contracted from raccoons and no reports of any other infectious diseases or viruses contracted from contact with raccoon feces.

Part of the reason that I appreciate raccoons is that they give me an opportunity to brush up against the otherness of a non-rodent, undomesticated creature. (Although perhaps their dependence on our waste is a form of domestication?) I’ve got nothing against squirrels (though something against rats), but raccoon sightings bring me more pleasure. I’m happy to share my space with another mammal eking out its living alongside mine in a wholly different way.

I know raccoons are “poster child” omnivores — they were fed cat food and day-old doughnuts at the sanctuary. But I wasn’t sure my concern about cutting them off from a primary food source was reasonable, so I got in touch with Suzanne MacDonald, a professor at York University who studies Toronto’s raccoons. In fact, she’s examining my very question, conducting a multi-year study to determine if raccoons’ body mass index is decreasing in accordance with the new green bin roll out.

Her initial research shows that raccoons in areas that have the new green bins are doing fine (they’re as fat as ever). They are clever enough to stay plump from other food sources, such as bird feeders, insects, dumpsters and garbage bins. An online search reveals recent complaints that some raccoons have already been able to crack the new green bin’s code (so to speak — we haven’t yet gone that far).

For many, this means the war on urban wildlife will continue to be waged. For me, it’s a sigh of relief.

Rachel Plotkin is a wildlife campaigner at the David Suzuki Foundation