I don’t buy it.
At any given time a percentage of certain critters are rabid. The percentage fluctuates from year to year but not to an extent that one could say rabies is not a significant threat. For racoons it generally flutters between 20-30% according to every article out there. That’s not something to shrug off.
To hunt raccoon in California, you have to have a valid Hunting License from the CDFW. Hunting licenses are available to residents and nonresident, who are at least 18 years old. See FGC § 3031(a)(1) and (3).
and you cant use a pellet gun. “Air guns are not listed as an allowable method of take.”
But yeah, you can use “legal means”. Shotgun, trap (with permit), rifle, lots of stuff.
BY LEGAL MEANS.
Ever heard of the SSS method of getting rid of nuisance raccoons?
No it doesn’t mean: Squee-Scritch-Smile.
(Not that I’d ever do that😊)
Raccoons are fur-bearing animals that probably have a legal hunting season and all that. But at least on my state, there are separate laws for “I’m going hunting, because i want to bag me some racoons” and “there’s this raccoon damaging my property that i want to get rid of”. In my state, there are all sorts of rules about killing raccoons, rabbits, and gray squirrels as a hunter. And there are different rules, which don’t require a permit, for killing the same animal in your property if it is causing problems.
And legal means of killing animals for “I’m going hunting” are much more highly regulated (for obvious reasons) than are legal means for killing pest animals on your property.
Hey, yeah, that’s all true in California, too.
Here are the California regulations on killing raccoons
California Raccoon Hunting Seasons and Trapping | We've moved to www.LegalLabrador.org..
(It’s not the state law, it’s someone’s summary and explanation of the state law. But it refers to sections of the law and generally looks reliable.)
The text is full of lines like this one:
In general, it’s illegal to herd or drive furbearing mammals, including raccoon. The only exceptions are for landowners and tenants preventing damage to private or public property, including aquaculture and agriculture crops.
There is another exception when raccoon are causing Property Damage (see below).
That is, it’s full of exceptions for people who want to kill a pest animal on their property.
And no, root can’t relocate raccoons in CA, but you can kill them.
Warning shot!!! If you legally injure or trap a raccoon in California, you have to kill it immediately.
And it goes on to say
You are not allowed to kill it by:
- Intentional drowning,
- Injection with any chemical not sold for the purpose of euthanizing animals, or
- Thoracic compression, commonly known as chest crushing
That doesn’t sound like it would be illegal to use a pellet gun. In fact, the section on gun hunting has maximum limits to the fire power, not minimum limits.
According to this surveillance article
The domestic incidence of rabies in raccoons, skunks, and fixed has been significantly reduced by vaccinating the wildlife, via an oral rabies vaccine (ORV):
The USDA APHIS manages a national wildlife vaccination program, started in 1995, that distributes ORVs by means of fixed-wing aircraft in rural areas and ground vehicles, helicopters, and bait stations in urban and suburban areas.
I linked the latest report i could find (2018) and surveillance of animals tested for rabies found about 12% of the raccoons tested were positive for rabies. That’s going to be a higher percent than in the population at large, because the animals tested were killed for a reason, and either bit someone or were suspected of being rabid. Healthy raccoons generally avoid people.
I suspect the number you remember is the percent of animals that test positive that are raccoons. That hovers around 35%.
There has been improvement in rabies due to baits containing killed virus distributed by airplane. The work done to license this was done at the Wistar Institute in the 80s/90s (I resided in Philthadelphia at the time.
An island was chosen for the study. The prevalence of rabies was determined by trapping raccoons and testing. Then baits were distributed. Over a several year period, prevalence was shown to decrease.
There were tests in parts of my state, too. I remember reading about it at the time. I’m delighted to read that baiting raccoons with an oral rabies vaccine has been very effective. (But was aware that rabies is less common just because I’m not constantly reading about rabid animals taken locally. And i haven’t seen an obviously rabid animal in two decades.)
Raccoon rabies and raccoon distemper can both cause the same general appearance. I still occasionally kill a raccoon I assume to be rabid. However, in my area raccoon rabies is so common that I just dispose of the animal, not bothering to test.
A decade ago I came home from work and a neighbor flagged me down. A fox had been in our yard all day! Very atypical behavior. I took my dogs into the house and grabbed a shovel to dispatch the fox (my usual raccoon killing tool).
Turns out rabid foxes are very different than rabid raccoons. As I approached the fox it began to stalk me. I ran into the house, swapped my shovel for my shotgun, and killed the animal. I bagged the corpse and submitted it to the department of agriculture. It tested positive.
And no, I held neither license nor permit and the authorities were not concerned.
The rabid skunk in my yard was attacking a blueberry bush. As if it were another animal. The authorities were concerned with me because i neither killed it nor immediately reported it. I believe it was rabid because they picked up a skunk that died of rabies very close to my yard the next day. (I told them two days after i saw it. I was mildly chewed out for not calling immediately, and assured that the police don’t mind getting called in the middle of the night, and that i should have done so. But killing it and reporting the body the next morning would have been okay, too.)
Not to pile on the cute widdle raccoons, but in addition to rabies they can also carry Baylisacaris roundworms which potentially infect other animals including humans and dogs, sometimes causing serious or even fatal infections.
Just read a story in USA Today about the appearance of a new strain of rabies in Omaha. The index case was in a stray kitten someone adopted. The theory is that the mother cat and/or kitten were exposed to/bitten by a rabid raccoon. 10 people exposed to the kitten received (apparently successful) rabies prophylaxis. A CDC/USDA/local health officials task force got involved. 18,000 baits containing oral rabies vaccine were distributed in the area. Similar programs conducted across the country have made a big dent in rabies incidence.
Baylisacaris is a huge problem for people breeding rabbits. Raccoons get into the hay and straw used for feed and bedding.
But you have to admit they are cute. And clever. And dextrous.
I used to bag my apples, as they grew on my trees. Pop a ziplock bag over it when it’s tiny. This is surprisingly effective against fungal diseases, and you get very “clean” apples. Until the local wildlife realized the bags announced “food in here”. Squirrels just chewed through the bags. But once i found a nice apple with about a third of the apple eaten, and the bag neatly re-zipped. That was a raccoon.
Obviously saving it for later and wanted it to stay fresh.
Yep, they are.
We have three fruit trees- a peach, a nectarine and an apple.
The peach tree grows super tasty peaches, or so i am told (oddly we dont like peaches), but nowadays the birds, bees, and racoons get them all, unless you’re fast.
The apple tree is a variety that is designed for hot climates, and is not all that tasty- so the animals will eat the apples a little, but not much.
The nectarines disappear quickly but the tree doesnt produce many anyway.
A few years back I was getting ready to take the house dogs out in the pre-dawn hours. Opened the door to the back porch and saw wet raccoon tracks on the porch. Grabbed the shotgun, went outside, and saw the 3 raccoons we almost walked into the middle of climbing our big fir tree. Not one of them lived to tell the story. I like living in a rural area, whatever method works.
They’re bad on domestic fowl. I had to put an inside fence in my rearing coop, the young turkeys would sleep up against the chain link, and the raccoons would pull their heads out and eat them. Had them do the same with chickens.
They are known for doing that! A friend has pigeon lofts (he flies (Birmingham Rollers and does white dove releases at funerals). He loses a percentage of his pigeons to raccoons that snatch their heads.
Here’s a gift link to the original article in the Washington Post.
I used to work with a woman whose husband, and his brothers, hunted raccoons during their legal season and sold the pelts. They made pretty good money from this, too. After she told me this, I replied, “And then I suppose you have a big cookout.” She said, “We don’t like the meat, and we don’t know anyone else who does either, so it gets wasted. We feed it to our dogs.” I told her, “That’s not wasteful!”
Several years ago, I saw an animal curled up under a bush by my apartment building, and thought at first that it was a puppy. On closer inspection, it was a raccoon cub (pup? Anyway, probably a weanling that was still with its mother). Cute little thing, too.
Kit…
They never bothered my homers, hawks and owls were the worst for that, after the rist couple times I started locking the bars when the pigeons weren’t flying.