That photo is from Luckie, who explains:
This raccoon was walking around my backyard when I got home today just after noon. I scared it up a tree. I’ve called a couple of wildlife guys; they can come out next week, and each will charge between $185 and $220 to set live traps for raccoons. My question: is it worth it? Can this sort of action make a difference in the raccoon population of West Seattle ? Or would I just be spitting in the wind? Are other people having daytime raccoon visitations? I wouldn’t care so much, but we’ve lost several pets to raccoons.
P.S. The raccoon is still there. It fell asleep.
This gives us the excuse to finally post one other note we received a few days from someone who wanted to discuss the West Seattle raccoon situation. This one, its sender told WSB, was written by a cat named Eros:
My name is Eros. I live on the hill in the woods just above Alki Beach. Recently I looked on the westseattleblog to see if you had any information about raccoons, but there was nothing. I am surprised you don’t have numbers of readers writing letters about raccoons since they are such a presence around here.
In the spring a mother raccoon in the woods nearby had four babies. We could look out the window and see them trailing their mother in the woods as they gradually grew up. Now they are full grown and are making an impact on my life big time. All my life I’ve had a convenient cat door to go in and out at my pleasure, but now the cat door is shut. And why, you ask? Well, it’s those pesky raccoons. Since late summer, we kept hearing little noises in the kitchen late at night and my human family wondered what it was and couldn’t figure out who was eating all the cat food. They buy me nothing but the best, healthiest dry cat food. Of course, I knew who was eating it – I was in and out often enough to see the raccoons sneaking in the kitchen but since I didn’t have a way to tell my humans, they just let it go on. I am not afraid of the raccoons, in fact I’m quite a hunter myself, catching mice, rats and other little rodents all the time. If the raccoons are around I just give them a wide berth, climbing up on railings or fences and watching them.
The day of reckoning came about two months ago when one of my humans happened to turn on the light in the kitchen and found a raccoon- one of the now grown babies – in the kitchen busily eating my food. He/she didn’t want to go out – so there was a little fracas involving a broom and much human noise while the raccoon was chased out the door. The cat door was immediately shut.
Then all the humans, residents and, as it happened, guests, congregated at the back door to see three raccoons as the door, all trying the door to see if they couldn’t push it open. The humans all oohed and aahed about how cute the raccoons’ little faces looked as they kept taking turns trying the door and then looking up as if in disbelief.
So now, the cat door has been shut for weeks and I have to sit in front of one of the doors to be let out. And, worse yet, I have to sit outside in the weather waiting to be let in.
Now, in the last two weeks the raccoons have started coming up on our front porch (we have an 80 years old house with porches (not decks) and fighting late at night. They make quite a racket with thumping and raccoon style screeching at each other. They are not appearing on the back deck looking for food any more. I guess they think it is a lost cause.
I’d like to hear from other cats or even dogs or humans who live in the area who also know some raccoons. (I’m a little interested in possums too, but they seem to be scarce here. So far no foxes or coyotes – that’s kind of scary.)
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