Haven't seen you in a while. Welcome back.
Posted on 06/04/2011 8:39:31 AM PDT by billorites
Piercing, terrible screams shook Roddy Muir out of his sleep at about 5:30 a.m. Wednesday.
“It sounded like a young child was being thrown around — and I could hear this banging and racket,” says Muir, 43, who lives on Campbell Ave., near Bloor St. W. and Lansdowne Ave.
“I ran into the back of my yard,” said Muir, a voice actor who had fallen asleep on a couch on the main floor of his house.
What he saw was a familiar sight.
Last summer, behind his house, Muir saw a man attack raccoons with a pronged implement. In that incident, he said, he saw the man stab at raccoons on the ground and puncture them so they were screaming.
“I yelled at him,” said Muir, who saw the raccoons run off. He described it as “surreal” and he didn’t report the incident, hoping it wouldn’t happen again.
But when he heard the screams again on Wednesday, he feared something similar was happening.
Muir said he saw one baby raccoon cowering on the ground.
A man swung a spade at another baby raccoon on a fence, knocking it to the ground and hitting it a number of times with the shovel, he said.
The baby raccoon was screaming. Muir was beside himself. This time, he intervened.
“I was swearing my head off. I said, ‘What are you doing? I told him he was a f---ing psycho.”
The animal was screaming and in such agony, Muir told the man to kill it and put it out of its misery.
Muir said the man looked at him and said, “I’m not going to kill it.”
“I said, ‘Why are you doing this?’ ” Muir recounted. “He swept his arm around and said ‘They’re destroying my garden.’ ”
Muir said he told the man he was going to grab his cellphone and call police. The dispatcher could hear the injured raccoon’s screams.
Meanwhile, he said, the mother raccoon was nearby — he thinks she had three other babies with her.
She came down to the injured, crying baby that had been hit with the spade and picked it up. “It was still alive but it was really smushed and flopping around and crying,” Muir said.
The raccoon and its baby got away.
A man was arrested after police arrived on the scene.
A baby raccoon was taken to Toronto Animal Services and supervisor Fiona Venedam said it should recover. The tiny animal fractured several toes and may have a broken leg, she said.
“He’s a pretty feisty little guy,” she said. By late Wednesday, the raccoon was well enough to be transferred to Procyon Wildlife Veterinary and Rehabilitation Services in Beeton, Ont.
Animal Services hopes to eventually release the raccoon back into the same area.
Later on Wednesday, Muir said he saw the mother raccoon come back.
“It looked like she was looking for her baby . . . it tore my heart out,” he said.
Dong Nguyen, 53, of Rankin Cres., whose backyard abuts Muir’s, has been charged with cruelty to animals and possessing a dangerous weapon. No one responded to knocks on the door of Nguyen’s home.
Neighbours who live on Nguyen’s street had only good things to say about him on Wednesday.
Don Westacott, 53, who lives several houses away, has known Nguyen for a number of years and has always found him pleasant. He, Nguyen and other neighbours lived together in a nearby apartment building before they bought new semi-detached homes on the street about a decade ago.
Nguyen is very devoted to his garden, Westacott said. “He’s always out looking after his plants — they’re like his kids.”
Westacott said raccoons are real pests in the neighbourhood, always getting into garbage.
Nguyen is scheduled to appear in court on July 13.
Dos and don'ts of removing pesky raccoons
Got raccoons in your house?
They’re a wild bunch and they’ve got as much protection from harmful eviction as you do.
It’s easy to stop them from getting inside but they’re difficult to remove once they’ve set up house in your roof, walls and under the porch.
Pest control firms must follow the provincial law that protects wildlife such as raccoons, squirrels and skunks from harm — even when they cause homeowner havoc.
“The law states you are not allowed to take them more than a kilometre from where they are trapped and, obviously, you can’t kill them,” said Iris Roth, co-owner of Delta Pest Control Inc., a family-owned Toronto area firm that’s been in the business since 1959.
She said getting raccoons out of your home involves placing a one-way door at the animal’s point of entry so they can get out, but not back in.
If they are trapped in a cage, food and water must be provided. If raccoon pups have been separated from their mother they must be fed and cannot be removed until they are six weeks old.
“As soon as they are trapped and we get a call from the homeowner we have to pick it up. If there’s a full nest and the mother comes out we have to put the babies in a box near the house or the mother will take apart the roof to get back in,” Roth said.
The cost for the removal of one to three raccoons with a one-year guarantee they won’t come back is about $375.
Removal of parents and a large litter can cost $1,000 or more.
This is the busiest time of year for pest control firms as all wildlife is in breeding and nurturing mode, which means critters like raccoons are foraging to feed their broods.
“We get quite a few calls this time of year because the young are being born and they’re coming out of their nests,” said Fiona Venedam, supervisor with Toronto Animal Services.
She said there does not appear to be more complaints than usual this season and notes the arrest of someone accused of harming raccoons is rare in Toronto.
“This is probably the first cruelty complaint — where wildlife is concerned — I’ve heard of in the last 10 to 15 years,” Venedam said.
However, Toronto Police Service confirms that a man was charged in 2003 with cruelty to animals after beating a raccoon and putting it in a dumpster. The raccoon in that instance was so badly injured it had to be euthanized.
Animal shelters will take in motherless babies and try to get them to wildlife rehabilitators who raise them until they’re old enough to go back into the wild. If not, they are euthanized at the shelter.
Raccoons, like all wild animals, are drawn to food sources but humans can easily deter them.
“Secure your garbage and remove the means for them to get into your house. Keep composters enclosed and don’t feed your pets outside,” Veredam suggests.
She said because they are natural climbers, raccoons get into roofs by scaling old ladder-style television antennas, overhanging tree branches and clawing and wedging their way between homes separated by a small gap.
“They need something to grab onto to be able to climb. A smooth surface like a metal (or plastic) barrier at the foot of trees will prevent them from getting up there,” she said.
--Henry Stancu, Staff Reporter
A racoon's worst nightmare -- outside of getting whacked with a shovel.
We missed you, Lazamataz. Have your ears been ringing?
You are correct, but for one thing: A pellet gun that shoots faster than 500fps is considered a FIREARM by the (liberal passed) gun control law here. You need a FAC AND to register the device.
Hopefully Harper and company will eliminate this boondoggle sooner rather than later.
Have you ever killed a coon with a baseball bat? It isn’t a pretty sight.
I, too, have planted a garden for the raccoons the last two years. FWIW, they love peaches and cream sweet corn.
They permitted me to have a few ears last year.
This year I understand they’re going to learn the electric fence shuffle, and if that doesn’t work, next year they get to dance with Mr Winchester.
Yes, that was sarcastic to the hilt.
I don’t think this guy was torturing these animals, just doing a poor job of killing them. And there is no doubt that this is the Canadian nanny state run amok. The additional charge of “possession of a dangerous weapon” (as mentioned in the post by Jonah Goldberg that I linked earlier) proves it.
No but I read Elmore Leonard's Be Cool.
Haven't seen you in a while. Welcome back.
***A person shouldn’t have a right to defend his property against pest animals. ****
We’d be up to our hinie in mice and rats if we had that kind of laws. why not add insects to the group and make it illegal to kill a fly or a cockroach. Thankfully we don’t live in the Dark Ages here! We may if Obama gets another four years!
(Perhaps if I accidentally found an old 2 liter pop bottle filled with fiberglass that jumped onto the muzzle?)
Back in the 1980s there was an attachment made to put a two liter soda bottle on a .22 but the FEDs shut it down. I have an old article from FIREPOWER magazine on testing a two liter soda bottle on a firearm. the article was originaly titled...The Pepsi Challenge. When it was published, it was changed to The POPSIE Challenge.
***The neighbor that lives close to me would get upset if you messed with her pet wild coons.***
I take they have never been BIT by one! I have! He buried those fangs right up to the root in my hand. Even leather gloves would have been pierced by those teeth!
Texas “mountains”?
Yep, they are called the “Rocky Mountains”. Davis Mountains, and more. The end of Rockies on the Rio Grande are brutal, no water, everything has thorns. Look up Big Bend National Park.
You haven’t ever *seen* mountains until you’ve seen the Appalachians.
USA Highest peaks:
Texas, Guadalupe Peak 8,749 #14
North Carolina, Mount Mitchell 6,684 #16
Tennessee, Clingmans Dome 6,643 #17
Virginia, Mount Rogers 5,729 #19
West Virginia, Spruce Knob 4,863 #24
Well my farm is on the Blue Ridge Parkway and I will have as many as 6 coons, 2 opossum, 3 foxes and a bear in my back pasture, all at once, in the evening. I don’t need any more critters, in fact one bear is enough, it is like having a supersized raccoon on the loose..
***My grandad built her a concrete block everything-proof chicken house after weasels slaughtered her beloved Aracunas one night.***
I had a coon killing mine till I found out how he was doing it.
I went to open the coop and found one hen gone that morning. The rest of the chickens were not in any panic.
The next day another was gone, and there was blood and feathers outside the coop. The chickens were still calm.
When I looked inside the coop in one courner by the roost was a large ammount of blood and some guts. The coon had found a 1 1/2 inch opening between the roof and the sideboards. In the night, he would reach in, grab what he found and pull it through the opening.
I then put boards up along the openings, and live trapped the coon.
It is a she, she feeds the little things dog food, even a pet coon will bit you I have been told. If you really think you have coons playing in your garden sprinkle a bunch of red pepper around, end of problem.
***You’re not as bad as my mom.***
That reminds me of my sister’s dsughter’s chicken experience.
My niece came home from school and went to the barn just as her dad poped the head off a chicken. The girl let out a scream and grabbed for the chicken which was flopping around. She grabbedit, it flogged her spewed blood over her
and made a real mess of things.
After everything calmed down, my sister explained to her that this is where meat came from.
So, from that day on, everytime they had chicken for dinner, the girl would look, frown and ask...”IS this a store bought chicken, or is this a MURDERED CHICKEN!
Storebought was OK.
that’s what we use: friendly trap
but you have to take them far away. we let them loose across a river that they cannot cross
knock on wood but we haven’t seen one for five yrs
***I was out the other day hunting groundhogs for a farmer who called me. Got 4 in an hour. ****
I’ve got a sheepdog who suddenly got into a killing mood. She has killed and drug up 10 groundhogs this year.
A few weeks back I hauled off a rotting groundhog and before I could get back to the house she had another one.
Panacur does not kill tape worm , Droncit does.
Wow... I have seen those dog kennels and I think they are worthless. We talked many times about how something could climb a tree and jump in or just clear the fence as you said. Why aren’t those kennels available with HEAVY DUTY TOPS ON THEM? No sense in putting your animal in a cage with an open top. To me that makes them sitting ducks. I was a little confused when you mentioned Dead Wolf...I lost somethign in the story yet read it a couple times. Thanks for the info though. Appreciate it.
Neighbor shot the wolf from like 5 feet away with 12 guage. Wolf wouldn’t let go of dog with neighbor standing right there hollaring his head off, so it ended up dead wolf. It was 110 lb female. I had wolves in my garbage cans twice last winter, once I moved things around and set up game camera, they never came back. I would have luved having picts of adult wolves in my garbage cans. No joke we have too many wolves nowadays. No Alaskan wants to see them extinct, just controlled as the wolves have the moose about extinct in our area. My kids have called wolf pups (end of first year) in with mouth squealers waiting on the school bus in the mornings in sept.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.