And the really discouraging thing is that the navy base here is one of the main research, development and test facilities for the navy and we have a relatively high percentage of highly educated people. I guess that just goes to show that book larnin’ doesn’t necessarily result in common sense.
What is the navy doing in the desert, flying aircraft?
Oh, god, I didn’t think of it that way! Safety issues including rabies are a hot button item in my line of work. But I’ll shut up now.
It’s a long story. It all started when a bunch of guys, including two Nobel laureates, from Cal Tech needed a place to test these new fangled rockets during WWII. So they came up to the southwestmost basin of the basin and range terrain where they were miles from everybody else.
No, no! Don’t stop, you write well and have tons of knowledge to share.
Maybe you should open up an “Ask the Wildlife Rehabilitator” thread in MPSIMS.
[hijack]
Have you ever read John McPhee’s book Basin and Range about that area? Fascinating.
[/hijack]
Oh no, I was just teasing you. Anyone who has such good information to share and does so in such a palable fashion should post as much as he wants.
Now, if you post like that in a flirt thread, … (aw, who am I kidding? Posting like that will get you a date on the Dope. 
)
All right. With all due humility, thank you.
Because of a woman who shared Musicat’s attitude about feeding wild raccoons, my husband and I were literally forced to move out of our apartment.
Our neighbor insisted on putting bowls of cat food out all around our entire apartment building to feed the cute raccoons and possums. NO amount of begging and pleading would sway her. So a raccoon pair – the female being pregnant and eventually giving birth to seven babies – coming for the food, took up residence under our building. Then, every night for weeks, we’d hear them scraping their claws on the old pipes under the bathroom, until eventually they managed to tear a hole them it so they could get to the water.
Now that there was a constant gush of water pouring out under our apartment, all the hardwood floors began to buckle and the baseboards around the rooms started pulling away from the walls. The water attracted the slugs and the softened wood brought the rats, both of whom decided they liked the warmth of the inside of our apartment better than the crawl space under it.
And even then, knowing we were being forced to feed our own indoor cat in the bedroom, while stuffing towels under our bedroom doors at night in an effort to at least sleep safely, bitch still insisted on littering the entire surrounding yard with her fucking bowls of cat food.
And eventually the towels quit serving their purpose and a rat chewed its way through one, squeezed under the door, jumped up on the bed and proceeded to run up my legs towards my body while I slept!!! We packed up and moved into a motel in the middle of the night and could never spend another night in that infested hell hole.
Now, admittedly, the landlord holds as much or more responsibility for failing to address not only our numerous complaints, but the orders of both the County Health Department and the City’s Prosecuting Attorney. But we wouldn’t even have been in that position had that selfish twat not been feeding the damn raccoons in the first place.
So on behalf of everyone who lives around you, thanks, Musicat, for being a piss-poor excuse for a neighbor.
Unfortunately, I think she long ago vacated this thread.
Unfortunately? You want to keep picking on her?
Hell, I’ve a good mind to leave some stale bread out tonight just to pick on you. 
I guess that did sound a little mean spirited, but what I want is for her to recognize the error of her ways and change her behavior, rather than just cover her eyes and say “I can’t hear you.”
Stale bread? Huh?
Then don’t start posts with “You’re ugly and your Mother dresses you funny.”
The argument that some of the coons she fed might be the ones to suffer was good, but you could have made the point somewhat more diplomatically.
The real estate developers I harped about earlier cause much more of the problem than someone who habituates wildlife to eat on their porch.
Oh, didn’t see that. Food for raccoons.
A lot of time an energy has been spent in this thread, in large part to convince Musicat that what she’s doing is wrong. I said “unfortunately” because it seems to have been wasted energy since she’s apparently no longer paying attention to this thread. Therefore, it’s pointless for Shayna to address her directly.
Sorry for the hijack, folks. Continue to discuss how habituation raccoons is bad, and keep up the great posts, CannyDan.
I have a small corner of my property which is fenced off and left for the wildlife. It’s got lots of shelter and permanent water, including a winter creek. There are often Grey Kangaroos there, I’ve seen a Black Wallaby , an Echidna, a couple of Gang Gang cockatoos and there are several different varieties of frogs and at least one Tiger Snake.
It also seems to be home to a couple of foxes, which isn’t such a good thing, but they are beautiful animals and I enjoy seeing them.
My house paddock is also home to what seems like dozens of Brush Tailed Possums, which are incredibly easy to tame if you feel like it, but I have no wish to make them more vulnerable to my dogs or over-population, so apart from tossing out the occasional over-ripe piece of fruit, I think they’re better left alone to take care of themselves.
I do make sure that there is always water available though, we’ve been suffering through a drought in Victoria, and it’s been very hard on the birds.
If humans in more rural areas want to help look after wildlife they’d be much better off keeping their dogs locked up and under supervision and slowing down on the roads at in the evening, night and early morning.
I don’t agree with the “you’re ugly and your mother dresses you funny” approach and I don’t think all of the posters here went that route. Many, like CannyDan, tried to point out that there were many problems involved with feeding the cute wild animals.
Since this is the dope and we try to fight ignorance, we could actually accomplish more here by educating one person than railing against real estate developers who won’t be reading this thread or give a shit about what we have to say. Fighting the ignorance of developers is a nigh impossible task. Not to say they don’t deserve a pitting, too, but in Musicat’s (and others like her) case there was actually a small chance of getting her to listen.
You are not attractive, and your Mother dresses you in a humorous fashion.
Whaddya expect from a coyote?
Have you tried *pointing *the cats at the rabbits? What kind of pussies are they, anyway, that don’t hunt rabbits?