Today Mrs. J. reports that our Havahart trap is hosting a “large, fat. angry” raccoon.
It is fat because it has been feasting on my ripening sweet corn. Apparently it decided the tunafish I baited the trap with was more succulent. Its fate is in your hands.
We always just hoisted the crate up in the back of the truck and went and released him by a river or other body of water.
It was more complicated with a skunk, but we’d do them that way, too.
/appalachian dialect
Um, kill it - if its problematic for you “releasing” it to somebody else just makes it their problem.
What do you do with the other animals you catch?
If there’s an animal control authority in your district, I’d probably call them.
Release raccoon; where is irrelevant. Purchase electric fencing to deter all subsequent corn thieves.
BTW, shouldn’t your sweet corn be ready to harvest? ETA: For your consumption, I mean. It’s obviously met the raccoon’s standards.
Eat that ugly thing! You know it’s corn fed, so how bad could it be?
If it were at my house, I’d call Animal Control. Is that not an option where you are?
Yup.
He’s the only thing between you and a proper hat.
Fatten him up on a diet of persimmons, no more fish or meat. Make a hat out of the skin, and and burgoo with meat. Put the head on a pike out in the cornfield if you don’t need another hat or more burgoo.
Here in Eastern Tennessee, this wouldn’t be a topic of debate.
We always take the little critters out of the trap, dress them up in clown suits and sell them to the traveling circus.
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OK, just joshing. Really, we kill, skin and eat them. Don’t taste as good as possum, but at least they’re relatively clean. I hate having to worm the younglings after we eat tainted possum.
It is a disease vector for many nasty things.
Kill it, handle carefully, use gloves.
Either kill it or let it go. Relocating wildlife is not nearly as humane a solution as it may at first appear … and it is illegal in many states.
One example: Relocating Wildlife
Is there a wildlife rehabilitator in your area? Or you could contact your state Fish and Game commission. They should be glad to take the raccoon off your hands and deal with it appropriately.
Half-ripe doesn’t make it for me.
I’m not sure what a wildlife “rehabilitator” is. Do they hold interventions? Arrange varmint group therapy?
At least we caught a raccoon, and not something harder to deal with. I wouldn’t enjoy messing with an angry skunk or (as happened years ago) a neighbor’s cat allowed to roam free.
Hey, you’re not top o’ the food chain for nothin’. Varmint owes you, what, a buck fifty for all that corn he ate? Well, racoons don’t carry cash…
Other: Throw him in the brig until he gets sober.
Even if you released him far away from population centers, there are two potential problems for the raccoon:
If this faraway place is a good place for raccoons to live, you’ll probably be setting him loose in another raccoon’s territory. There’ll be a fight and one raccoon is going to kill the other, or hurt it seriously.
If this faraway place is NOT a good place for raccoons, he may starve.
Domesticate him. He can sit in the good chair in the family room, eat peanuts, and watch TV with the rest of the household.
Serious question here.
Cat caught a rat the other day. It wasn’t in good shape so I had to send it to the pearly gates. I really couldnt bring myself to drown it, shoot it (no gun and city limits), bash in its skull, chop its head off, or bury it half alive.
Then, it occured to me that I had some car starter fluild. Ether basically. So, I etherized it. Seemed to work pretty well actually. Any thoughts on that?
Personally, I would have loved to have a chamber where the oxygen level slowly decreased but I don’t have that (yet).
PS, if you domesticate the thing make sure to get some of this:
link safe for work and family