Raccoon Adventures

I love my community message board. Sure, it seems like many of the posts consist of neighbors complaining about people not cleaning up after their dogs, but there are some hidden gems on occasion. Recently, a neighbor shared this lovely story.

Hello neighbors, I just saw an emaciated raccoon slowly walking around looking lethargic and confused. I called the police and they came out. The officer couldn’t find it. It was seen across the street from REDACTED. The officer said if you see it again, to call the police again. He said it may have distemper, as they have been getting a lot of similar reports.

Before I go further, since this is my blog, I thought I would share my raccoon story. During my freshman year of college, I returned to my residence hall by myself very late one night (or very early in the morning) from an amazing party. And by amazing party, I mean from finishing a paper in the computer lab. For those of you who aren't familiar with the term “computer lab,” in the 1990s, not everyone had their own computers. If you were lucky, you might have a friend or roommate who had a computer and would let you borrow it. Oh, and by borrow it, I mean that you would sit in that person's room at their desk since people only had heavy desktop computers back then. If you weren't lucky, you would go to one of the computer labs on campus and sit in a room full of people and computers for hours, or worse, wait for someone to finish using a computer and then sit in a room full of people and computers for hours.

Anyway, when I completed the paper, printed it in the computer lab, and saved it on disc (email was a thing back then, but email attachments were not), I walked back to my room. Just before reaching my residence hall, a raccoon popped out of the dumpster at probably around 4:00 AM and simply stared at me as if to say, "I'm eating here. Don't bother me, or suffer the consequences." Since I probably looked lethargic and confused myself, I turned around and walked in an entirely different direction to get back to my room.

Now back to your regularly scheduled neighborhood message board already in progress. 

The first reply: I too saw a very small sickly looking raccoon in [our neighborhood] last week.  I called the police and my husband and I followed it without getting too close until the officer arrived.  He put it down immediately.   Thank you for calling and trying to get help for the animal.  I’m keeping my eyes open. 

By "put it down," the person means, picked up the raccoon and rocked it to sleep for bedtime, right? Like, putting a child down for a nap.

Next reply: I called Animal Control last week but they weren’t open.  I then called the non-emergency number for the police.  They said they dispatch for animal control.  When the officer arrived he said he was “acting animal control.”

Who knew that acting animal control is one of the job titles and duties for police officers.

Final reply: My neighbor said that sometimes patrol officers cover for animal control officers.  In his encounter the police also implied they would put the animal down as well. Wonder how they make that call.

I never really thought of this before, but I assume that the officer is actually shooting the raccoon, right? Are there other ways of putting it down? I understand if it's a rabid raccoon that could be dangerous, but I'm not sure I want to hear (or see) police shooting a raccoon in a populated neighborhood.

Of course, maybe people were just confused between raccoons and bears again. Or they saw a fox instead and decided to publish a video of it on a blog instead of sharing it with the message board!