Raccoons are brilliant little thieves. I camp a lot. I don’t worry about bears or coyotes. I worry about coons.
I once had a Rubbermaid bin with a bunch of cooking supplies and a bag of peanuts. I put a collapsible jug with 5 gallons of water in it on top of the Rubbermaid and snapped the lid shut.
I hear a noise around 3am and saw a herd of coons. The noise I heard was the Rubbermaid bin closing. A coon slashed the jug, drained the water, opened the bin and stole the peanuts. Grudging respect.
Another time, a coon unzipped a pocket in a friends backpack and took his deodorant. He dropped it pretty quick after realizing it wasn’t food.
Over 20 years ago, I camped a lot as a Scoutmaster with my son’s troop. It was a constant battle to keep the raccoons out of the ice chests that held the food. One night we tightly wedged the ice chests under the concrete picnic benches in our campsite. All was well until the raccoons arrived in search of their usual treats like the other campsites with less prepared campers. Upon discovering our ice chests were not easy treasure troves of edibles, a huge fight broke out among the marauders, likely seeking to blame one of their crew for the failure of the raid. The adults had to come out of our tents with flashlights and loud noises to break up the gang fight and encourage them to move on to better choices deeper into the campground.