I don’t really feel like writing about politics today, but I was fascinated by this story about a lady whose property was overrun by a hundred demanding raccoons. I suppose the moral is obvious. Don’t feed raccoons. But the details were still interesting.
For more than 35 years, a woman in Washington State would leave some food in her yard for about a dozen resident raccoons.
The key word in that sentence is “dozen.”
Six weeks ago, the number of raccoons began to increase. “Somehow the word got out in raccoon land, and they all showed up to her house expecting a meal,” Kevin McCarty, a spokesman for the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office, told NBC 9 news.
Wait a minute, the sheriff’s department? How much did this thing escalate?
A lot. The newer raccoons began scratching around the woman’s house near Poulsbo, Wash., all night demanding food. “Anytime she comes out of her home, they swarm her until she throws them food,” the sheriff’s department said in a statement. “The normal raccoons that she feeds are nice, but the new ones showing up scare her.”
By last Thursday afternoon the newly scary raccoons had grown to a horde of about 100, prompting the woman, whose name has not been released, to call 911. Her concern was increased by the newer arrivals’ greater aggression after years of dealing with a relatively docile, much smaller band.
She was understandably freaked out by their sheer numbers, but the fact that the newcomers were an ornery bunch reminded me of how criminally-minded humans prey on weaknesses in every system. The original bunch had a good deal. They stayed well-behaved and they got free food. But inevitably that kind of arrangement can’t stand for long before someone comes along and ruins it. It was a good run though: thirty-five years.
Around these parts we have a different problem. We are absolutely overrun with deer. I drive at dusk a lot, mostly taking my son to and from soccer practices, and I almost always encounter deer by the roadside, crossing the road, or just see herds of them in the fields. On Wednesday morning I dropped my stepson off at his house at 2:00 am after we went to a concert in Manhattan, and leaving his house I had a deer run straight out in front of the car. There was no way to stop in time, but I got down to about 10mph or so before impact. I hit the thing broadside right in its ribs, and I was shocked at how far it went. It scooted along the road for about 30 yards until it went off into someone’s driveway. It scampered to its feet and ran off.
I collected myself for a moment, and continued on home. About a mile later, a had to slam on the brakes because a buck was right on the roadside. And then a half mile further on, I had a repeat with a doe. I made a turn towards home, and a doe was standing in the road. And finally, I passed another deer only seeing it as I passed. Basically, I hit one deer and almost hit five during a twenty minute drive.
When I got home, I used my phone flashlight to check for damage and I didn’t see any. I confirmed this in the morning. I’m just glad I was able to slow down so much because it spared my car and also perhaps saved my life. When those deer come up at the windshield it can be trouble.
A lot of the local forums are discussing the problem. I’m not sure what to do about it. It’s too densely populated to solve much by hunting. I guess we could import mountain lions or something, but that’s not very appealing for obvious reasons.
A couple of years ago the deer were dying from some disease, but I guess that didn’t continue. Anyway, do you have any wildlife issues near you?