Re: Raccoons, crows

I live in a very remote, rural area on top of a mountain with streams
nearby - but only about 6 miles from the nearest town. Raccoons are always
around here. First of all, keep your animals up to date on their rabies
shots. Raccoons have now overtaken skunks as the number one animal with
rabies. I seldom see them until right at dusk when they come to eat under
the bird feeders or where I feed the deer. If you think that squirrels are a
problem with bird feeders, try raccoons!! They are MUCH more destructive.
They not only eat the suet that I leave out for the woodpeckers and
nuthatches but they carry off the suet feeders! Sometimes they even bring
them back! :) They live under at least one of my porches. I don't fight
them -- but I also don't encourage them. It isn't good for them or me! Since
I have 2 dogs, they may be less of a problem than they would be otherwise as
they seem quite frightened of the dogs.

Raccoons won't damage your ornamental gardens - they could care less about
that stuff. They might eat out of a veggie garden, however. They mostly want
bird and deer feed here and try to carry off the deer feeding
blocks......which is funny as they are too heavy for them so they drag them
a short distance and leave them. Keep dog/cat food locked up and garbage
cans in the garage! Sometimes, right at dark, one will sit on my porch and,
unless you look closely, you think it's a cat. Speaking of cats, don't let
your cats roam where there are raccoons. If a cat tangles with a raccoon,
the cat does NOT win. My rural vet here says the worst injuries he's even
seen to a cat have come from a fight with a raccoon. There are some bobcats
around here, as well as coyotes and at least 2 gray wolves. They may help
with the control of the raccoon population but I'm not sure. Seems like
there are fewer raccoons here than 2 years ago - and I'm still out in the
middle of nowhere!

Since I live in the country, I feel like I'm sort of invading the
raccoons/deer territory and not the other way around. I try to leave
everything, including the flora and fauna, as natural as possible. There is
even a bald eagle flying around here -- whose picture was on the front page
of the local paper recently. The first one sited in a long time in this
county.

I can imagine that, if you live in a city, raccoons and skunks would be more
of a problem because the city would have encroached on their territory. I'd
call the humane society for help with a raccoon problem in the city as they
would know the appropriate things to do.

Just my two cents.

Rosemary, zone 6a, on a mountain in eastern KY
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