Got that rascally raccoon!

[MarkBC]

This morning I caught that bad ole raccoon who's been raiding my house via cat-door to eat cat food for the past couple of months.
(sorry, no photos -- I didn't want to shame the poor critter

)
I set my live-catch "Havahart" trap last night, baited with dry cat food. I'd done this 3 nights in a row just before I left on my nor-Cal trip, but without catching that thin-fingered thief. Around 5am this morning I got up to get a drink of water...etc...and looked out the kitchen window: I could see that the trap door was down.

But I couldn't be sure what was inside... (I cover the trap with a tarp so that, in case I've trapped a skunk, I can approach the trap to open it without the skunk "going off" as they -- usually -- only spray at what they can see. Ask me how I know this step is important...

)
I went outside, walked around and peered in the door-end and saw -- WOOHOO! -- that I'd captured that pernicious procyon!

I carefully picked up the trap -- heavy and awkward with the thrashing wild animal inside -- carried it around to my truck and put it in the back of the camper. I transported the beast to a spot on the bank of the Deschutes River downstream of Tumalo State Park (several miles from my place) and opened the trap door. That masked marauder was out in a flash and ran off, pausing just once to look back when a safe distance away.
Maybe he'll be satisfied living on natural food...or maybe he'll find it easier to raid campers in the nearby Tumalo State Park. Either way.

Now I can leave the cat door unlocked at night without sharing food with the raccoon...at least, not that raccoon. I'm sure there will be another or others who appear at some point -- this one wasn't the first so no reason to think it'll be the last.
This is the third or fourth raccoon that I've trapped and relocated over the past few years. I have a magnetically-locking cat door that only opens (i.e., allows the flap to be pushed in) to a magnet-wearing critter (e.g., my cat). I got this a few years ago when I started finding neighborhood/stray cats in my house, and it works fine against non-magnet-wearing cats and most other animals.
But raccoons are damn smart ("scary-smart" a friend of mine says). Eventually they figure out that inserting their thin claw under the door flap and pulling out then getting their paw or nose under the flap holding it open they can enter. This is quite a trick as there's very little clearance between flap and frame -- they have to work at it a while even when they know how. One night I heard the cat door being "worked" by a raccoon, I opened the human-door next to it, and found a mama raccoon teaching the trick to several of her attentive young!
Scary smart!

 

[Smokecreek1]

You could make this your retirement profession-wonder how many raccoons there are in Bend! Hey, there goes Mark, the Raccoon Man-maybe you could make a mask, and make a movie!

Smoke

 

[simimike]

Those raccoons can be a real pest. They were terrorising my yard and being very aggressive. So I got one of those Havahart traps. The first critter I caught was a skunk! I learned the tarp trick buy luck and didn't get sprayed. I later found out that one of my neighbors was feeding the raccoons and what I took as aggressive behavior was them running up to me looking for a treat. Either way I dropped them off in Bend and haven't had any problems since.

Mike

 

[MarkBC]

...Either way I dropped them off in Bend and haven't had any problems since.

Ahhh....OK, that explains it -- they seemed like SoCal-ians.

My first critter-catch was also a skunk

...but skunks -- as long as they're not cornered -- are much easier to deal with than raccoons: They're much more mellow.
(and they don't know how to defeat the magnetic cat-door latch)
After I covered the trap-with-skunk with a tarp -- which, unfortunately, did cause it to spray a little ("a little"? Yes -- they can control how much scent they release, and this wasn't bad) -- I left the covered trap alone for a couple of hours. When I came back the skunk was asleep! ("Hey -- I'm nocturnal, and it's daytime -- time for me to sleep, even if I'm in this cage.").
I carefully opened the trap door (the skunk still didn't wake) and left again. The skunk was gone when I came back a couple more hours later.

 

[ski3pin]

I had a friend who did a live trap service like this for friends. He wouldn't release but humanely dispatched them, boil 'em up and would make a big stew to take to his church's potlucks. He'd tell them all it was raccoon stew but nobody would believe him.

 

[Lighthawk]

Mark, we have a job for you in Nevada City. SR would appreciate your trapping skills, since we have the same problem. They usually knock over (like a bank) the auto-feeder and make a big mess. Both cats just watch and don't do anything about it.

 

[MarkBC]

Mark, we have a job for you in Nevada City. SR would appreciate your trapping skills, since we have the same problem. They usually knock over (like a bank) the auto-feeder and make a big mess. Both cats just watch and don't do anything about it.

Maybe you could get the recipe for raccoon stew from ski3pin, I could come down and exercise my trapping skills, and we could have a big raccoon feast!

But I don't do any "dispatching" myself...so not sure how the stew would work out.

 

[highz]

Those pesky raccoons do a good job of emptying bird feeders, too. I finally strung my feeders on a cable between the deck and a tree so thy were about 30 feet off the ground. It did seem to stop the raccoons, but one evening I heard a "twang, twang" and went out to see that a bear had shinnied up the tree and was plucking the cable and the seed was bouncing out of the feeders to the ground. The bear then climbed back down and ate the birdseed at it's leisure. I wonder if it left any for the raccoons? I've noticed before that when a bear raids a dumpster the raccoons are hanging out nearby waiting for the leftovers.

 

[Lighthawk]

Maybe you could get the recipe for raccoon stew from ski3pin, I could come down and exercise my trapping skills, and we could have a big raccoon feast!


Ummm. SR doesn't even do bacon, so I don't think a possum-like-stew would fly. Maybe you could export the racoons to Bend? Or perhaps Pollock Pines, I hear they like that sort of thing.

 

[MarkBC]

Ummm. SR doesn't even do bacon, so I don't think a possum-like-stew would fly. Maybe you could export the racoons to Bend? Or perhaps Pollock Pines, I hear they like that sort of thing.

How about Simi Valley? I think i read that their raccoons have disappeared...
I'd like to avoid interstate transport of animals.

 

[MarkBC]

Those pesky raccoons do a good job of emptying bird feeders, too. I finally strung my feeders on a cable between the deck and a tree so thy were about 30 feet off the ground. It did seem to stop the raccoons, but one evening I heard a "twang, twang" and went out to see that a bear had shinnied up the tree and was pluchIking the cable and the seed was bouncing out of the feeders to the ground. The bear then climbed back down and ate the birdseed at it's leisure. I wonder if it left any for the raccoons? I've noticed before that when a bear raids a dumpster the raccoons are hanging out nearby waiting for the leftovers.

I have my birdfeeder hanging at the end of a long wire, long enough that squirrels can't reach it. Raccoons, however, walk along the branch from which the feeder is hanging, grab the wire, reel it in and pull the feeder up onto the branch...that's where I find it in the morning, empty.

A couple of years ago I saw a deer reaching up and sticking it's tongue into the feeder and getting those precious sunflower seeds. So I had to shorten the wire a bit to put it out of deer reach...but still long enough that acrobatic grey squirrels can't reach it from above.

I've taken to disconnecting the feeder and bringing it in the house at night.

I'm glad I don't have to deal with bears in the backyard...though that would be pretty cool.

 

[simimike]

Being in a semi arid climate zone water is a big deal. I went trough several ground based bird baths. The raccoons would knock them over or just muddy the water. I finally got tired of replacing broken baths and went with a hanging style. Over the years I'd guess I've spent a couple hundred dollars dealing with these rascally raccoons.

 

[MarkBC]

Come to think of it, we shouldn't be surprised by raccoons' behavior: those eye-masks they wear make their game -- larceny -- pretty clear.

----------------
I live a couple-hundred yards from the Deschutes River, so I figure the animals are on their own for water...though I suppose a bath would get used if I supplied one.

 

[ski3pin]

Ummm. SR doesn't even do bacon, so I don't think a possum-like-stew would fly. Maybe you could export the racoons to Bend? Or perhaps Pollock Pines, I hear they like that sort of thing.


Hey Lighthawk, my buddy is in Grass Valley so has been harvesting raccoons from your neck of the woods. We have never had a problem with raccoons, figure it is because of no pet food around. Barking Spider goes to war with raccoons and some of his battles are legendary such as climbing up on the roof in the middle of the night swinging a broom, in a rage, almost naked, before his wife could calm him down and get him back in the house. Here we deal with deer, lion, and bear.

And, how did I know my buddy was really cooking up the raccoons? I stopped by his place one morning years ago and asked what was in that big stock pot simmering on the stove. With a smile, he lifted the lid and showed me. He liked the big pot because he could pop the whole critter in and simmer until the meat fell off the bones.

 

[MarkBC]

At 6am this morning I heard a rattling/working of the cat door -- and Kitty was on the bed.
I got up and peered out the kitchen window and saw a big raccoon -- pretty bold since it was already light outside.

I'm (almost) positive this is not the same one I relocated 3 days ago -- this one looks bigger, taller, and the other one never appeared in daylight.
But not too big to fit in my trap!

I wonder if there's some animal-safe dye/paint I could use to mark the raccoons I catch so I'll know for sure if I'm seeing a returnee...

 

[simimike]

If that's the same raccoon I relocated to Bend, Get out of the house NOW. You can't ever return. Good luck and god's speed.