The raccoon was one of the most common carnivores in the San Gabriels
and was found on both slopes of the range. Tracks were noted and one old
male was trapped at the base of the Pacific slope foothills at 1900 feet
elevation, and raccoons were captured at several localities from this
point up to 5500 feet in San Antonio Canyon. They were noted on Blue
Ridge at about 8000 feet elevation foraging around the camp grounds. On
the desert slope they occurred down to the lower edge of the
pinyon-juniper belt, for example near the mouth of Sheep Creek Canyon.
Sign of raccoons was most often found near water; tracks, however,
indicated that these animals, along with other carnivores, used fire
roads for traveling through the chaparral. In a small draw one-half mile
east of the mouth of Thompson Canyon two raccoons were trapped although
the only water was a series of small, disconnected seepage pools beneath
the valley oaks.
A raccoon freed from a small steel trap in San Antonio Canyon concealed
itself in an unusual but extremely effective manner. When released the
coon splashed up the middle of the small creek nearby to a place where
some dead alders had fallen over and shaded the water--here the animal
squatted down in the stream. The raccoon was mostly submerged, its tail
was floating, and its back and the top of its head and snout were above
water. With most of its body under water, and with the maze of alder
logs above casting a broken pattern of light and shade, it was well
hidden. When closely pressed the raccoon hid in the same manner several
times before it disappeared up a rocky draw into the scrub oak brush.
In the autumn of 1951, raccoons fed on grapes at the Sycamore Valley
Ranch one mile south of Devore. The one specimen (P. C.) saved, an old
male from 1/2 mi. W Palmer Canyon, had remains of beetles in its stomach
and weighed slightly more than 13 pounds.