Coon hunting in the city

I've not posted in over a week now as things seem to be getting busier every day. So I decided it was good to at least let everyone know we're here, surviving and staying active...kind of.

The past 2 weeks we've been waking to toppled trash can and trash all over our yard. One night as Al was letting the dog out, he saw a raccoon peek it's little head up from inside the trash can...at least we knew what it was now but had to figure out how to deal with the raccoon. Ron borrowed a humane live animal trap so Al baited it and set it out to capture our furry little friend.


At 11:30pm on Sunday night, Al is up alone and excited to tell the entire house about the raccoon he caught. He woke up everyone, including trying to wake up Connor to go with him to release the raccoon at the civic center...Connor is a heavy sleeper though so no luck, Al was on his own.

Things were back to normal for a few days and then we started finding the trash cans toppled once again. So Al set the trap again...this time we caught a possum. Ron, Al & Connor had a male bonding experience of going to release the possum :) We set the trap again just in case something else was out there. Sure enough, another raccoon. Al talked about making a coon skin hat, until he started playing with the raccoon through the cage. The raccoon would reach out and play with Al's finger or roll onto it's back and play footsie with Al's finger. He headed off to release the raccoon, but had to get it a bite to eat, first. I warned Al I would not tolerate any more pets :)

A short time later I receive a phone call from Al and he was very sad. He had decided that the raccoon was so nice and friendly he would take him to the animal shelter instead of releasing him in the wild. Then he regretted that decision. The Rockville Police had told Al to release the first one at the Civic Center. The animal shelter said they euthanize immediately due to rabies being out of control in Rockville. Al tried to convince the animal shelter that he was a very friendly raccoon and couldn't they just quarantine him and see if they could find him a home. They were not willing, would not hear of it and tranquilized the little guy to remove him from the cage. Al was quite sad...this coming from the guy who only hours before was bragging about making a coon skin hat from of the little critter.

I never expected that by marrying a city boy and living in such an urban environment that I would still be rubbing elbow with coon hunters :) We just do it a little differently in the city than we do in the country.