Few animals have adapted to urban living better than raccoons.

The bandit-faced, fluffy-tailed mammals are especially booming in Toronto, where thousands upon thousands of the critters reside, earning the city the title of the Raccoon Capital of the World.

The mid-sized creatures are nocturnal and stealthy, with collapsible spines enabling even the fattest raccoons to flatten out and squeeze through tiny spaces.

Being so adaptable, they’ve figured out ways to stay under the radar for a long time, which has allowed their populations to explode.

That, and they have ample access to all kinds of food sources – namely garbage and compost.

To reduce this endless nightly buffet, the City of Toronto is considering spending $31 million on raccoon-resistant household compost bins to be rolled out city-wide in 2016.

So far, the first raccoon-proof bins to hit the streets have proved their worth by foiling the crafty critters from getting into the bins.

In Merritt, where we have problems with bears chowing down on our refuse, it seems logical to get bear-proof garbage containers (although, of course, expensive).

In the meantime, measures such as reducing the time your trash bin is outside and freezing smelly garbage so it doesn’t attract any unwanted visitors are reasonable ones for the average person to take.

These options are definitely better than the alternative, which seems to be “putting down” bears that become habituated to human food sources.

For any government agency, a cull or capture-and-relocation method should be a last resort.

In the mid-2000s, the conservation arm of the Scottish government had exhausted all its other possibilities in dealing with an infestation of hedgehogs.

The government called for a cull of 5,000 of the signature English animal on Scotland’s Western Isles, where the hedgehogs had been feasting on wading birds native to Uist, one of the remote islands.

Hedgehogs are not natural predators of the wading birds because they are actually something of an invasive species, introduced to the island by a homeowner who had brought in hedgehogs to deal with garden pests.

The cull was eventually called off in 2011 after eight years and 1.3 million British pounds spent lethally injecting or relocating 1,500 of the spiky critters.

The cull and its results were met with everything from hefty criticism to staunch support, but the conclusion on its efficacy is certainly far from clear.

These days, the debate across the pond is all about badgers.

In 2014, the British government OK’d shooting badgers in Somerset and Gloucestershire, England in an attempt to reduce the spread of tuberculosis to cattle.

The government stands steadfastly by its culling trials and promises to extend them to other parts of the country should the Conservatives take May’s general election.

Whether the trials were actually effective at reducing cattle deaths remains the subject of much debate.

It’ll be a similar case of wait and see in B.C., where the controversial wolf cull (which the government is officially calling “wolf removal”) is aimed at saving dwindling mountain caribou populations from the carnivorous canines.

The cull has ended for this year and saw 84 wolves killed, and is expected to take place for the next four years.

Western Australia implemented a shark catch-and-kill scheme in the summer of 2014 to protect human swimmers in the waters off the Land Down Under’s western coastline, which is home to dozens of pristine beaches.

Seven people were killed in shark attacks between 2010 and 2013 in western Australia.

Baited hooks were lowered in the water about one kilometre from shorelines to catch and kill great whites, bull sharks and tiger sharks. Those hooked but still living and measuring in over three metres could be shot under the cull’s rules.

During the program’s trial period from July to April 2014, the hooks reeled in 172 sharks, 50 of which were over three metres long.

After intense public backlash, in September 2014, the policy was changed so authorities would only lower the drumlines when there is “imminent threat” to public safety — as in, when a shark’s near the beach or has just attacked someone.

That government maintains its denial that the policy was ever a cull.