Urban Wildlife Tales

[Amor de Cosmos]

So we moved into our new digs at the end of November and took off for Europe two weeks later. Jet-lagged and fluey I arrived home last weekend. and was woken at 3:00am Sunday to the sound of scratching and scraping coming from who knows where. Turned on all the lights, inside and out, suddenly everything went quiet. I walked around the outside, nothing on the roof I could see. Walked around again, still nothing. Then a frantic scrabbling under my feet. I stamped hard on the decking. It stopped. Walked around the house again. As I came back to the deck there they were. The two biggest raccoons in the world. I swear they're the size of Great Danes and look as fit as fuck.

They're staring at me from over the edge of the deck. I stare back. No one moves, it's high noon at 4:00am, but I can tell they're communicating telepathically: "You reckon we can take him?" "Yeah. Piece of piss." One of them puts a paw over the deck and makes to come toward me. I decide on a preemptive strike and lumber towards them, flapping my dressing gown threateningly. They duck back under the deck. Ten minutes later they're back out on the lawn, giving me the bad eye. "Oh don't think this is over sunshine, we can wait."

So, I call pest control, — who'll be here tomorrow to "give me an estimate." Fuck the estimate! I want them here at 8:00am with AK47s. In the meantime I can hear them digging into my house. I've got "Smooth Jazz" on Galaxie day and night. I figure an overdose of Kenny G might mellow them a bit (or enrage sufficiently to move out.) And it helps disguise the noise as the house gets demolished.

[WOM]

Urban Wildlife Tales

Very nice. The urban burglars have gotten so big and so bad round our way that I've started keeping all the bins inside the garage. They've also gotten a lot less nocturnal lately.

Someone hit a full grown deer a few streets over from us. It had been seen near a ravine for a few days, munching on the boulevard, and had somehow gotten spooked into traffic.

[jason voorhees]

Urban Wildlife Tales



Now that's some Hell Up In Harlem.



The D Train ? Or the P Train ?

[Amor de Cosmos]

Urban Wildlife Tales

That's a possum no?

[Cal Alamein]

Urban Wildlife Tales

Well, can't top Amor's raccoon dilemma, but about an hour ago took the dog for a brisk walk in our nearby arroyo and ran into the usual assortment of cottontails and jackrabbits. We're about a quarter mile from exiting the arroyo when we see as cocky and brash and out-in-the-open coyote as I've ever seen. He came out from a bush and was no more than 50 feet from us. We all stare at each other. My dog is not sure what to do. She has likely not even seen a coyote before. This stillness goes on for about five seconds. Then my dog wants to go after the coyote, and the coyote takes a leisurely stroll in the opposite direction. I'm struggling to clutch the leash as my dog is lunging to get to the coyote. She is a boxer mixed with a Rhodesian Ridgeback and strong as hell. The coyote finally takes off and I struggle to get the dog the heck out of there. In the future anytime, we go for a walk in the Arroyo I know that will be foremost on her mind. A cool experience as it is rare to get that close to the beasts.

Raccoons can be persistent little boogers, not as bad as skunks though.

[Billy Casper]

Urban Wildlife Tales

When we lived in the Lower Mainland I was cleaning our wooden deck with a hosepipe, when a raccoon scrambled out and then stood on the lawn looking at me. I tried spraying it more but it still wouldn't leave, so I came up with A Plan.
I went back inside the house so the raccoon could go back under the deck, which it duly did. The kids paddling pool was full of water at the time, so I tipped it up and heard all the water cascade down under the decking. 'Result!' I thought and went back inside to see what would happen next...

Within a couple of minutes the raccoon emerged, soaking wet, carrying a wet through baby raccoon in its mouth, took it over the fence and into the wood at the end of the garden. Then it came back and collected another baby. And another. And another. I also noticed at about this time that it had been in an accident, and one of its back legs didn't work so it had to really struggle over the fence.

I left the lid off our outside bin for a month.

[jason voorhees]

Urban Wildlife Tales

Yes, Amor. Possum or Opossum.

I was looking for the one that was stuck on the 20th floor in midtown about 10 years ago, but couldn't find that one.

It was a Possum trying out for the Dinosaur Train spinoff, the Possum Train.

[linus]

Urban Wildlife Tales

I`m not sure if this will play outside of Canada, but this is a great documentary on the natural history of modern urban raccoons:

http://www.cbc.ca/player/Shows/Shows/The+Nature+of+Things/2010-11/ID/1815680672/

[linus]

Urban Wildlife Tales

and AdC, short of carrying an AK47, I`d recommend going to a serious weapons dealer (like ToysRUS), and getting a good water-soaker there. Load it with serious ammo (tobasco-laced water), and take no prisoners; aim for the head, and don`t shoot till you see the white of their eyes.

Nasty, but ultimately pretty humane, this method actually does not violate the Geneva Conventions. I got rid a pesky clan of coons that way.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Urban Wildlife Tales

I've tried the hose, but they're faster on the draw than me (ie: back under the deck before I can reach the trigger.) They also seem to be almost entirely nocturnal, visible/audible between about 2:00–7:00am only. Patrolling the back-yard with a super-soaker during midwinter's early hours in hopes of dowsing a pair of raccoons is verging on the obsessive even for me.

Until a few years ago my dog dealt with unwanted critters in a heartbeat, I miss her now more than ever.

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

Urban Wildlife Tales

Not wildlife as such, but I walked into the living room last week to find six of our chickens sat on the sofa. It was as if they were waiting for the Christmas film to start , or the Pathé News chicken to show on screen or something. Our two dogs were lying in their baskets nonplussed as usual.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Urban Wildlife Tales

I awoke at 6:30am this morning to see two depressed looking Raccoons wandering reluctantly away from what used to be their home. Now I feel like a right bastard.

[Reed John]

Urban Wildlife Tales

If raccoons made house under my deck, I think I'd just let them stay. It seems like it would be more effort than it's worth the get rid of them. And I figure a big coon would probably scare off skunks. I don't really want a skunk in the yard (which happens from time to time) lest I accidentally run into it and get sprayed.

I don't have racooons, but I do have woodchucks living under there (at least in the summer. I think they may have decamped for winter). There's no threat that they're going to undermine the foundation of the house or anything like that and I don't (currently) have a dog or a vegetable garden so they're not causing any trouble.

Black bears occasionally pass through town and create a commotion. I haven't seen any in my yard or too close by, but they'd be welcome to visit.

[alyxandr]

Urban Wildlife Tales

Except the process of making baby raccoons sounds like demons being tortured, and usually seems to happen around three or four in the morning.

[Incandenza]

Urban Wildlife Tales

There's apparently a coyote in my parents' neighborhood. Completely suburban, no wildlife or open areas nearby except for a golf course and a large park about 3 miles away. Anyway, everyone with an outdoor cat is freaked out.

[Reed John]

Urban Wildlife Tales

alyxandr wrote: Except the process of making baby raccoons sounds like demons being tortured, and usually seems to happen around three or four in the morning.

I've never heard that around here. I do hear cats late at night sometime. Not sure if they're getting it on or fighting.

[WOM]

Urban Wildlife Tales

You might actually be hearing racoons. They make cat-like noises. I'm not doubting your cat-identifying abilities, though. Just saying.

We had a racoon that got stuck in our recycling wheely bin one time. I brought out the bin from under the sink, lifted the lid and it hissed at me from half-way down. I shit myself, dropped the bin and went staggering back across the driveway in a blind panic. Of course, my wife was just driving around the corner and witnessed the whole thing.

Made for some convenient ridicule for a few weeks. And, of course, now I lift that lid like I'm working for the bomb disposal unit.

[Incandenza]

Urban Wildlife Tales

Wait, the bin was in your house, or was this a sink outside?

[WOM]

Urban Wildlife Tales

No, the big wheely bin is in the driveway. We have a small bin under the kitchen sink where we toss day-to-day stuff and I empty it outside in the evening.

[Incandenza]

Urban Wildlife Tales

Gotcha. I had a grasshopper land on my arm and when I saw it I had an involuntary spasm to fling it off. Can't imagine what I'd do if I saw a raccoon staring up at me.

[WOM]

Urban Wildlife Tales

It wasn't just the staring. That would have been disquieting enough. It was the hideous hissing/chattering noise. And I was in that semi-somanbulent 'taking out the trash' mode and that was about the dead-last thing I was expecting.

I mean, you go down to the basement and you're emotionally ready for a troll to hop out from behind the furnace. But the recycling bin?

[Amor de Cosmos]

Urban Wildlife Tales

If raccoons made house under my deck, I think I'd just let them stay. It seems like it would be more effort than it's worth the get rid of them.

If it was just me, I'd agree with you. But La Signora is pretty freaked out by them. As a hemiplegic she has a tendency to feel physically vulnerable anyway. To make it worse a few weeks after she moved in with me, direct from the UK, there was a fight between a raccoon and a cat in the middle of the night a couple of houses away. It was one of the most hideous creature-noises you could imagine and went on for some time. The cat was killed, of course. Since then she's been nervous and wary of what they're capable of.

This pair, apparently, wouldn't use underneath our deck for breeding. It's too exposed, and not warm enough, even in summer, for young kittens. The pest control guys reckon they were most likely a sibling pair hunkering down for the winter.

[Renart]

Urban Wildlife Tales

Our neighborhood is teeming with feral cats. Something must be done. I wish the raccoons would move in and kick the felines out. I'm tired of smelling cat pee in my hedges and fishing cat turds out of our planter boxes. I think I'm going to have to start setting live traps and ferrying them to the animal center.

In more charming urban encounters, my daughter once spotted a fox and a cat lounging together by a reservoir near our house as we were driving to school.

I will always have a fondness for raccoons. My first published writing (when I was 10, I think) was a letter to Cricket (children's magazine) about raccoons bamboozling our dog to steal his food.

[Capybara]

A fox, about half an hour ago.

[sw2borshch]

A squirrel, yesterday.