What Raccoons Teach a Consumer
July, 2026
We have a problem with raccoons raiding our bird feeders. I heard about a gadget that could offer a solution—a solar-powered alarm triggered by motion.
Leaving bird feeders out overnight invites raccoons. Sunflower seed, suet cakes, sugar water for hummingbirds, fruit and jelly for orioles—everything gets eaten and licked clean by masked bandits. Feeders are often damaged or hauled off despite our efforts to make them inaccessible. We are forced to bring everything in before dark, which is an inconvenience and hassle. The alarm promised to make things better. I ordered it.
When it arrived I mounted it on a pole four feet from suet feeders hanging on the trunk of a big white pine. At dusk I ran a test. When the motion sensor detected me, red strobe lights flashed and the sound of gunshots and barking dogs rang out in deafening volume. This should work, I thought.
That night, from our second floor bedroom, I repeatedly heard hounds and gunshots. The next morning the suet cakes were gone, the shepherd hooks bent, the hummingbird feeders disassembled. The alarm does what it claims to do with one minor exception—raccoons ignore it. It’s junk.
A thoughtful man might see that the raccoons aren’t the problem—my unwillingness to tolerate a bit of inconvenience is. Maybe I should realize that every inconvenience doesn’t demand a solution, especially one involving a purchase. The impulse to buy, scaled to billions of people, becomes a culture that drives extraction, pollution, habitat loss, and climate change. A better solution is to accept a little inconvenience and live with fewer wants.
Edwin Way Teale was an American naturalist who wrote extensively about environmental conditions across North America from 1930–1980. He said, “Reduce the complexity of life by eliminating the needless wants of life, and the labors of life reduce themselves.” It takes money to buy stuff. Money requires time and effort to earn. The less stuff we want, the less money we need. The less we own, the less we have to take care of.
It’s not a novel concept, but a way of living espoused by Buddhists, early Christians, and Taoists. Socrates advocated for a life of moderation and simplicity. Thoreau promoted simple living as a way to connect with nature and find personal fulfillment. In the US, 86 percent of adults say they were raised in a religion, 70 percent as Christian. Minimalism as a biblical tenet has gained popularity in recent years. A commitment to a faith changes the way we think, live, and respond. A planet that allows life to exist deserves the same commitment.
We like convenience, but our desire to make things easier takes precedence over long term sustainability. Single use plastics permeate the environment and take centuries to break down. Microplastics flow in our veins, choke our oceans. Ready-made foods, the newest fashion, the latest iPhone, an endless assortment of electronics, crowd the marketplace and distract us from what we really need. We’re quick to add to our wants without considering how they push ecosystems to breaking points. Consumerism contributes mightily to our environmental woes.
There’s irony here. To avoid a little inconvenience I bought an electronic device with a plastic housing, solar panel, rechargeable battery, circuit board, shipping box, and instruction manual—the kind of stuff, when combined with the wants of a few billion people, fills cargo ships, expands mining operations, supports the oil industry, and occupies landfills.
The best path toward sustainability isn’t another invention or fashion design or knickknack. Every impulse to buy doesn’t have to be followed. Every problem doesn’t require a solution. At the top of our list of wants should be learning to live comfortably with less, for our sake and the sake of an ailing planet.
