Plenty of raccoons in Central Illinois, always very bold thieves. My daughter when she was in high school would often hear them climbing up the side of our house from her second story bedroom. She rejoiced when one of them would lose footing and careen screaming to the ground, doubtless unhurt, worse the luck. They bit their way through one of my recycling garbage cans. Satan’s minions, fittingly wearing masks.
The risk of inflaming the PETA advocates among us, a Duke 220 works fine. The live catch companies brought multiple live traps and multiple cameras to see what they didn’t catch. It cost me $800 to catch nothing. They’re restricted in what they can do according to them. After multiple failed efforts and a big charge I engaged in just War Theory in self-defense.
I can’t stand them either and wish there were more (rac)coon hunting so they would be more afraid of us! I had one kill my whole flock of chickens ðŸ˜
I grew up literally next to the Beltway – the sound barrier was 3 yards beyond our fenceline – and so the raccoons were numerous there too. Learned all the tricks of keeping them away. Came eye to eye with a couple while fetching balls when playing with my friends. Not fun.
When I was in the army and we were on field training exercises, raccoons would raid our rucksacks the middle of the night. They would pull out our MREs. They would chew into the packaging and pull out only the crackers and eat those.
have to admire the ingenuity of these critters, it’s not their fault suburbia exists..
Raccoon videoed hanging onto the ladder of trash truck on the interstate in NH…
https://www.facebook.com/reel/353651459605659/?mibextid=ZZyLBr
When I was a child, my family had a tom cat who was running a civil war with the neighborhood racoon. Sometimes the cat would return all bloodied and scarred, and sometimes victorious (tail in the air with a feline expression of superiority). But the yowls and screaming at night in summertime were fantastic entertainment for an eight year old. Sadly one day Silver (that was the tom cat’s name) met his match and we had to bring him to the vet to be put asleep. The racoon had finally won. I suppose if we had removed Silver’s spark plugs, maybe he would have been more sedate, but my Dad couldn’t bear doing that.
Silly me. I thought the article was about the minor league baseball team from Alabama.