Raccoon Hide and Seek
After our shift at WildCare, Steve and I went back with Melanie to check on the momma raccoon and her babies living in a crawl space. We kind of doubted they were still there. After all, we had pretty thoroughly invaded mom's space the last time we were there. And then there was the coyote poop throwing incident. Besides, at 4-3 weeks old the babies are old enough to be moved. But, we had to see if they were there and close up their access point if they were gone. Suiting up, Steve and Melanie started crawling around the space. The previous nest site was totally empty and there wasn't a sign of them. No trilling babies, no piles of poop anywhere. Determining that they must be gone, we got ready to close up the hole. We instructed the homeowner to give us a call immediately if she heard any sounds down there. Confirming our original thought that they must be gone, the homeowner said that she hadn't heard them for 3 or 4 days. She commented on how comforting the purring sound had been and how she could hear it right in that far corner of her kitchen. The place she said she had heard the sound was the one place that Melanie and Steve had not investigated that thoroughly. It was harder to get to and there didn’t seem to be a good way to climb into or out of it. But, we really needed to double-check. So, while Steve and Jasmine started to prepare materials to patch the hole. Melanie and I headed back in. We went further along this time. Melanie, who had on coveralls, went further along than I did and did a pretty thorough search of the area. She couldn't find anything, not even a nest site.
Now, I'm pretty proud of myself for this next bit. I said, "But the homeowner said she heard them over here. I just feel like we're missing something because there should be a nest site. Where is the empty nest?" So, Melanie started looking some more. She noticed an old blanket and we thought perhaps that was the site. Then she noticed there were little bits of torn insulation on top of it. Looking up (you know, people in horror movies always get taken out because they never look up), she saw a hole in the insulation and she started poking around it.
Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke.
GROWL!!!!! "Oh my god!" Scared the crap out us! Momma raccoon briefly popped her head out to look annoyed at being so unceremoniously awakened and went back in her cubby not to return again. Then we started hearing the babies trilling and purring. So, it turns out the nest is still there! There was no way for us to remove the babies to lure momma out of the crawlspace. Momma was right with them. We talked about our options for a few minutes, but then momma raccoon starting growling again and we thought it was time to go.
The homeowners are going to be on vacation this week, so we're going to go back in a few days to set up radios and strobe lights in the crawlspace and hope momma raccoon gets the point. In the meantime, we’ve learned yet another valuable lesson. In addition to "carry a dead rat in your pocket when you go on a dead animal call", we now have "always remember to look up."