Although rare, raccoon feces carry a deadly parasite that can affect humans, even years after they are deposited by the animal. Take precautions around raccoons and their feces! Raccoon like to use the same "bathroom" & use the same spot for years. They develope huge piles of waste that could be hazardous. The report below was from Calif in the Monterrey & SF area.

Doctors there, who later wrote about the troubling case in the journal Pediatrics, finally figured out what was happening. The culprit was a microscopic parasite that's spread by raccoon feces. It's called Bayliscacaris procyonis — also known as "raccoon roundworm" — and once it enters a human, serious symptoms can emerge within days.

raccoon roundwormShutterstock

The parasite invades the lungs, liver, heart, eyes, and brain and sparks serious inflammation throughout the body. While some people make a full recovery, the infection can leave others blind, in a coma, or with permanent brain damage. It's sometimes fatal.

In North America, the parasite can survive in many different animals, but it's especially common in raccoons, who "shed millions of B procyonis eggs daily in their feces," the Pediatrics researchers explain. Those eggs are extremely hardy, sometimes able to cause an infection even years after they've been expelled.

People who live near raccoons, hunt them, handle them, or keep them as pets may inadvertently ingest the microscopic eggs when they get dirt that's mixed with fecal matter in their mouths, either because they're eating it (often the case with children) or because they neglected to wash their hands.

Those eggs hatch into larvae in a person's small intestine, and then proceed to invade the rest of the body.

Fortunately, Bayliscacaris infection in humans is extremely rare.

Nice series. Yep families of these garbage pandas can squeeze in anywhere. I have seen them come out of small culverts under a driveway just before dusk and I found a wintering tree a few years ago. The hole they were in was about 25 feet up a dead trunk you could see where when they had to go they would just stick their butts out and let go from the look of the tree bark down the trunk. There was a pile a good foot or so thick all around the base of the tree. Must have been a big family wintering in that tree. I have a family on my trail cam that have been coming together for a couple of years now. All 5 of them. I call them "The Horde"