[Toad]

When you live in the middle of a 2 million person urban center like Vancouver, it is easy to forget that we are on the edge of a wilderness, and that our separation from nature is largely an illusion.

About a week and a half ago I became aware that we were sharing our house with wildlife of some kind. In the past I have had mice, squirrels and pigeons, but this time the sounds were distinctly larger and much more nocturnal. Persistent scratching of claws against the wood of the roof, shambling movement across the ceiling, and lately, most ominously, the high-pitched mewling of new borns. Nocturnal, large and roof nests = Raccoons!

For those of you not familiar with raccoons, they are an agressive, highly territorial animal with extremely sharp claws about the size of a small dog. They are cute as anything, so we tend to portray them as friendly and benign, but they are highly distructive to property. Having a family of them in the house keeping us awake all night with scratching, chewing wiring, and clawing their way through drywall wasn't an acceptable alternative.

I called an expert.

First step: locate the entrances - there were 2. Next remove a roof vent and cut a larger hole in the roof. The mother raccoon leapt out of the hole at that point and aggressively tried to chase us off the roof. Swinging a board like a bat made her retreat to a tree about 20 feet away.

The expert sealed up the entrances with heavy gauge wire mesh bolted to the walls. Then the expert lowered himself through the hole in the roof, located the nest and pulled out 2 babies. Meanwhile, it was necessary to keep fending off the mother raccoon from going into the hole to attack the guy in there from behind in a confined space.

Seal up the roof and replace shingles. The babies are in a humane box on the roof so that the mother can come to collect them and take them away.

Here is a photo of the mother preparing to attack. The object is the lower right is a roof vent such as the one the expert removed.



...and her are the new-borns - they are still blind and deaf - less than a week old.



Let's hope we got them all out!!

[jericho]

Great capture. Love the expression! Hopefully you are rid of the pesky visitors.

[Petographer]

If you were in a more rural area you could keep one as a pet. My brother had one for a short while. Great shots Toad. Also, you mention the sharp claws. What about those needle like teeth? I don't believe I've ever seen a baby coon that young before.

[EnglishBob]

Really cute animals but they can cause a LOT of damage, good you got them out.

[shuttertalk]

Great story Toad - pity about the inconvenience. Nothing worse than finding pests in your house. In my childhood days, my house in Malaysia was prone to big brown rats, cockroaches, lizards, you name it. I had disctinct memories of my mother jumping up on the table when a rat emerged, and my brother and I running after the rat with our plastic swords. Afterwards, my dad would trap the rat with baited cages...


Actually my wife was just telling me yesterday that they had a kangaroo appear in their backyard once, and also a sheep wander into their front yard. Considering they live in an urban area, that's pretty funny...

[slejhamer]

Very cool pics Toad. Raccoons are nasty pests, like rats, moles, deer, etc. Good that you got that shot of the mother before she lunged at you ... which reminds me of a true story:

The Great Toad Massacre
by S. Hamer

Once upon a time, we heard a bump in the night.

A few bumps, in fact. Just outside the basement window.

The window itself was partly below ground level, so a "window well" had been installed for drainage purposes. In that regard it worked well (bad pun), though it was moist in the well which might have made it a good breeding ground for those of an amphibian nature ... and in fact, an extended family of a half dozen rather large toads (or frogs - what's the difference, really?) had taken up residence therein.

So about those bumping sounds: Apparently a trio of raccoons had discovered where the frogs lived and decided to come over for dinner. What the hopping hosts didn't realize was that they were the dinner. The three raccoons had climbed into the well and were, quite simply, tearing the frogs apart. For fun. And inadvertently bumping against the window, which is why we heard them and became witnesses to the gorefest.

We tried shining a flashlight into the raccoons' eyes in hope of scaring them off, but they just stared at us curiously and went about their business, until they were done and scampered off into the woods leaving a bloody mess behind.

:|

[Toad]

Shudder...Toads everywhere living with raccoons above them will listen and learn from this cautionary tale.

Update: One of the young has been removed by the mother. The olther one is still up there shivering and mewling in the humane box. Hopefully, now that night is falling, and the raccoons come out to play...

[shuttertalk]

Toads spontaneously combusting, Toads being torn apart by racoons... you better watch out, Toad! yikes!

[Toad]

Update 2: 11:25 PM - the Mother has returned for the second baby - sayonara raccoons!!

[slejhamer]

Success! Well done.

[Irma]

Great! You won!

The first picture is great. Pity they are so destructive, because they are beautiful animals.

[Toad]

Great! You won!

Well, I don't think you can ever really win or that you necessarily should win when working against nature. You only delay the inevitable for a while...

It's really a pity that humans have such a difficult time sharing our environment with the natural world - but I guess that is a philosophical debate. The fifth night that I was kept awake by an overgrown weasel clawing holes in the attic, the time for philosophy was over...

[Kombisaurus]

great story toad.. and the expression on the mum's face is excellent
As Irma says.. it is a shame when such beautiful animals are pests.. but then I guess it is no more of a shame than when ugly animals are pests too!