I have a similar situation with the feral cats outside. The raccoons would show up after dark and finish off all of the cat food. So, I started taking in what is left over around dusk. Unfortunately one of them now shows up in the middle of the day to eat their fill.
And yeah, they do make some adorable sounds. I’d shoot the daywalker, but again, too adorable. It’s well into adulthood, so hopefully I only have to deal with it for a couple of more years.
Considering the attic and deck raccoons, I have never seen a raccoon during the day (except for one sighting of something that might have been a raccoon running through my back yard).
The stray cat I had been feeding stopped showing up, so I no longer put out food.
Ah. That makes more sense.
I was imagining some kind of hugely tough cat, probably the size of a Maine Coon but a lot less laid back.
– even a cat who routinely catches rats is somewhat unusual. Most of them stick to creatures less able to fight back; but there are occasional ratting cats.
Smart cat!
I stayed at a cabin once that had a screened porch and outside garbage cans. A whole rack of raccoons showed up at night and they were not friends. Lots of growling, spitting, and swiping at each other. Vicious things.
That’s my experience too. I once saw a raccoon sitting on my back deck, a few feet from the door. I thought I’d chase him away, so I opened the door, stepped out on the deck and stamped my foot. He looked at me quizzically and then started to walk towards me. I quickly retreated and closed the door. You win this round, Mr. Raccoon.
Don’t test them. You definitely don’t want a bite.
People who have them as pets and tamed them, attest they are destructive and nippy. Plus those little hands just creep me out.
A possum, on the other hand….
Once I was staying at a cabin in Wilderness State Park, at the top of Michigan’s L.P., west of Mackinaw City. Late at night I was sitting and chilling, watching the waves roll in on the Lake Michigan side of the Straits of Mackinac.
Then I saw movement from the corner of my eye. I looked to my right and saw the biggest raccoon I had ever seen, the size of a good-sized dog, had walked right up to me. I jumped up in surprise and started backing up. It looked up at me and cocked its head in a quizzical way, as if to say “what’s your problem?” Then it turned and casually ambled away.
We were walking our dogs years ago and heard a lot of commotion as we were passing one of the gates into our complex. A whole family of raccoons was climbing over the fence out of our property and landed on the metal roof of the structure protecting the intercom on the stairs. They were snarling, snuffling, and squeaking to beat the band.
Once at Yosemite I left my daypack on the picnic bench (after lecturing the kids to make sure all food was safely stored). There was a bit of noise during the night, but in the morning, every zipper on my daypack had been opened, and the lone granola bar I’d left in there had been unwrapped and devoured.
Muddy raccoon pawprints all over the pack, too.
Once I was out in front of my job having a smoke on the steps. The building was on the access road to a major freeway, and had a small parking lot out front with a tree on either side of the steps. While I was out there, a raccoon ambled along in front of the building. When it got to each of the trees, it stood up behind it, and peaked around it at the freeway on each side of the tree before moving on.
If someone else told me that story, I’d have assumed they were anthropomorphizing the raccoon. But that’s really how it behaved, so I find this completely believable:
But wow, where’d it learn zippers? I would have assumed it would rip the daypack open with its teeth before it learned a zipper.
I’m guessing Yosemite raccoons get a lot of practice with them.
I’m telling you, it’s the creepy little hands.
Just think if your cat had hands like that.
No cats here. Fortunately or unfortunately!
I am auntie to a neighbor’s cats though.
These people have been feeding and filming raccoons for years. I’ve seen some videos where there were 20 or more on the deck. The raccoons seem pretty chill.
God, I hope the humans have current vax.
Their hands/paws dont seem to really grip things like a squirrel, they just sort of hold things or scoop.
The youngsters are very cute.
Adorbs to the max. No doubt.
I had a box of 3 once. I babysat them 3 nights til I found a rescue. Not so cute screaming at you at 2am.
Even a possum with dentures?
Aaaaccccckkkk!
Or more realistically, according to my possum socks, Aaaaaaaa.
(No they don’t really sound like that, Clarence chattered. He may have been odd. What am I saying? He was definitely odd.)
Once upon a time I set a Havahart trap for a woodchuck that was damaging the garden. I came home that night from work and heard a mournful howling coming from the back yard, went to investigate and found in the trap a raccoon, who immediately shut up when he saw me.
He was released and sprinted away to parts unknown.
i have a raccoon in my backyard he is my friend i feed him and he make noise at me he go uhafhuduhgufuh