ozarque ([info]ozarque) wrote,
@ 2007-07-19 08:35:00
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Personal note; raccoon update...
Well, there's been a toddler raccoon in our trap every morning, and George has taken one away every morning and released it in thick woods near a small creek .... and there have nevertheless still been three toddler raccoons at our bird feeder every day -- one in the trap and two just doing their thing. Either this was a litter of six (or more) to start with -- which would be unusual -- or the ones that have been taken away have been coming right straight back. And this morning there was not only another toddler in the Havahart trap, and two toddlers under the bird feeder, the mother raccoon was also there, and she appeared to be not at all pleased about finding one of her kids shut up in a trap. George did some raccoon-threatening maneuvers with a long stick, and was able to convince her to leave so that he could retrieve the trap and take the trappee off to the relocation site .... but there are now some serious questions in our minds about the effectiveness of this strategy. [Still, a Google search says the only way to get rid of raccoons on your property is to trap them in a Havahart trap and relocate them. It also says -- unnervingly -- that relocated raccooons have been known to return from as far away as 75 miles.]

We may come back Monday to three toddlers and the mother .... or we may come back to a whole herd in residence. I'll let you know.


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[info]idiotgrrl
2007-07-19 01:49 pm UTC (link)
Raccoons herd? Wow.

Something tells me they have the raccoon equivalent of "Soft-hearted lady lives here." scratched into the dirt near your house. Good luck!

Pat, out here where we have coyotes instead. And every season, a bear or two on the outskirts of the city. Oh, and be grateful you're not in Denver - some extremely huge pussycats (6 feet in length) have been known to wander the city streets. (If you hear a bass purr at shoulder height, you are cat food.)

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[info]crossfire_
2007-07-19 02:33 pm UTC (link)
And coyotes. I was waiting for the bus a few weeks ago and a coyote came trotting across Colorado Boulevard like he owned the place. His patrol area includes my neighborhood; I've seen him several times over the last year.

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[info]crossfire_
2007-07-19 02:32 pm UTC (link)
I have only successfully relocated raccoons when there was a natural barrier between the relocation site and where they were captured. And by "natural barrier" I mean "Colorado River" and "The Continental Divide."

If you take away their food supply, they'll most probably leave. But best do it soon before mamma digs the winter burrow.

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[info]ysabetwordsmith
2007-07-19 04:44 pm UTC (link)
Crossing a good-sized river, or Interstate, or other serious barrier seems like a promising thing to try when releasing raccoons.

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[info]nrc_eu
2007-07-19 09:14 pm UTC (link)
Interstate = roadkill
For some reason the little varmints don't equate roads with death. I guess it hasn't been hotwired into their dna yet.

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[info]londonbard
2007-07-19 03:30 pm UTC (link)
This is probably silly - we don't have racoons here (and I make enough fuss over mice,) but if you you relocate one baby anything it will probably go back to mama if it can. Is it possible to cage the toddlers that you catch until you have three, then use them as the bait to catch the mother? (Then, possibly, ship them all somewhere far, far away?)

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Yep, they're persistant
[info]maggieno
2007-07-19 04:48 pm UTC (link)
In Washington state, it's illegal to trap and transport. When the state talks about the problem, it points out that -- short of the vast distances/obstacles already discusses -- raccoons come back. Like cats in the old song. Removal of any food source is the state's first suggestion for discouraging the furry pirates.

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(Anonymous)
2007-07-19 06:18 pm UTC (link)
Raccoons were never a problem for us as long as we had a big dog; they avoided him, no injuries either side sfair.

(bemusedoutsider)

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[info]elynne
2007-07-19 06:48 pm UTC (link)
A couple of months ago, we had some excitement in our house with a raccoon who came into the house (through the cat flap in the back door) to snack on cat food. This persisted until two things occurred: 1. one of my housemates, who was wearing boots at the time, caught the raccoon nosing through the cat flap, and kicked the flap into its face (didn't kick the raccoon's head, though it was a close thing, but did cause it a slap and some serious startlement); and 2. (probably far more effective) we started locking up the cat's food dish at night. Housemate opined that raccoons tend to stick to the same patrol path for a couple of weeks, then change their route/territory, so you'll see them fairly often for a while, then they'll vanish for a couple of months - but I have no idea if this is true, or if it applies to mothers and kittens. Best of luck!

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[info]nrc_eu
2007-07-19 09:24 pm UTC (link)
Well ... that settles that! I'll now quit pestering my husband to install a doggie door for our MinPin. The vision of one of those little varmints sneaking in at night brings back memories of long, long ago when I grabbed hold of a packrat who'd holed up in our house. Rat kept going, and me, with a dumb look on my face, just stood there with his tail in my hand. Still freaks me out when I think about it.

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[info]memegarden
2007-07-20 07:16 am UTC (link)
There are cat doors available that open only for an animal wearing the right collar (infrared or radio signal). They're pricy, but can be worth it if you have indoor-outdoor cats and wildlife.

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Actually, there is another way...
[info]alfreda89
2007-07-20 04:56 am UTC (link)
...but you won't like it. I know a man who was having trouble with raccoons entering the house through the dog door. So he started waiting for them with a BB gun.

Sixteen raccoon pelts.

We just stopped putting out things they liked, and greased the poles. Raccoons left.

Good luck! Hope you enjoy the convention.

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[info]ethesis
2007-07-20 04:56 pm UTC (link)
Well, our agriculture extension agent in Wichita Falls started using a can of spray paint to mark the raccoons so he could track repeat offenders. About the time he hit sixty or so (with no repeats) he got a call from someone about a plague of raccoon mutants -- with orange fur (the spray paint color).

He decided it was fruitless, he wasn't getting any repeats, but he was creating a huge horde of painted raccoons without any good purpose other than an interesting article about the entire thing in the local newspaper.

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[info]nrc_eu
2007-07-20 05:32 pm UTC (link)
This is hilarious! I needed a good laugh. Thanks.

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[info]almeda
2007-07-23 04:27 am UTC (link)
A bunch of college students on a campus my mom was teaching at tagged their campus raccoon population ... with paintballs. Unique color-groupings, so that the bio students could sit in their dorm-rooms with binoculars and track which 'coons came to which dumpsters what days, etc, for a behavioral zoology project. Orange-Orange-Blue particularly liked the cafeteria's dumpsters on the day Jello Salad was served (though most of them avoided it), as I recall.

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[info]ethesis
2007-07-24 12:10 pm UTC (link)
That is a great idea!

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Good luck with raccoons and the reading!
[info]kmp_zxcv
2007-07-20 07:56 pm UTC (link)
I'm going to miss your reading tomorrow at noon, but I think we'll be at Conestoga later Saturday afternoon and Sunday. For some reason, I got the dates mixed up.

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[info]zwol
2007-07-21 04:46 am UTC (link)
If the only food source they're after is your bird feeder, try liberally dosing the birdseed with cayenne pepper. This is not a joke. Birds do not taste capsaicin, but all mammals do - it ought to deter the raccoons while not bothering the birds.

[ Having said which, I wouldn't put it past raccoons to figure out how to clean the birdseed off. ]

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Old LJ Topic - Scut Work - Geek Game?
[info]perlandria
2007-07-22 10:47 pm UTC (link)
It just now occured to me that this competely silly and dorky little bit of fluff could dovetail well into some of the issues you raised in trying to find a way to even TALK about thankless maintenance work.

http://www.chorewars.com/help.php#2

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Re: Old LJ Topic - Scut Work - Geek Game?... response to perlandria...
[info]ozarque
2007-08-17 07:04 pm UTC (link)
That is just extraordinary. Thank you for posting the link.

Did you notice that the game and the art were done by two men -- both credited with their full names -- and the "weeks of grueling playtesting" were credited to three women, who were listed only by their first names?

As my grandmother used to say, "This world once more and then there'll be fireworks." Or something.

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[info]ethesis
2007-07-24 12:09 pm UTC (link)
Over at http://volokh.com/ they've branched out into linguistics suddenly (usually they just branch out from law into science fiction or Harry Potter).

You might get some amusement from their postings.

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