Adventures of a Midwestern Girl (and Her Hillbilly Hermit Tennessean) in Sunny, Sunny California

Remember the little singleton raccoon that needed a bath this summer? We released him last Sunday, along with 6 other juvenile raccoons! Baby raccoons do not do well as singletons, so we create family groups of usually 4-8 orphans. They also do better when released as a group; they look out for each other and learn from each other. Now off into the world they all went.

It was very cute. The first additional baby raccoon we introduced to our little singleton this summer was a little girl that Steve had rescued from under someone's floorboards. These 2 were very bonded, as you would expect from to lonely little orphans. But his bond persisted over the months and they were still bonded upon release.

Our little bath boy was the most adventerous of the group, coming out of the kennel quickly and climbing up the embankment of the creek.

He was out exploring for a few minutes and none of the others had joined him. He started to get worried up there all alone, so he gave a call and right away the little girl came scampering out of the kennel and climbed up to be with him.

Then they took off up the tree together. We know which 2 raccoons they were because of the way we boxed them up and because some of the others had different-looking fur.

The rest slowly came out and then it was time for the humans to leave. I do hope they are doing well. We did our best for them, but in the confusion that follows a release there's usually one raccoon that heads off in a different direction from the rest. The last one out got spooked and headed off the wrong way down the creekbed. Raccoons are very smart and I think that, once we left and the coast was clear, the little guy would come back and call to the others to link back up, but I always worry anyway.

Still have 3 or 4 groups to release this winter, but at least I don't think we'll be hosting any more at our house this year.

Posted by Anne at 08:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Difficult as it may be to believe, my favorite thing about raccoon foster care is not picking up a steaming pile at 6:30 in the morning. No, my favorite thing is releasing them into the wild! It was time for 4 lucky contestants to venture out into the world last Friday. Scheduling was an issue, so Steve took them out alone. I wasn't able to go on this one, which was a bummer, but Steve got some good pictures to share.

As much as they fight getting put into them, newly-released raccoons are hesitant to leave the kennels once they are faced with the big, wide world. There are usually several minutes spent watching them explore the area right around the kennel, often running back into them if anything startles them.

Eventually, though, they warm to the concept and it isn't long before they head off and disappear into the underbrush.

Although I couldn't go on this one, there are at least 4 more groups that will still be released this year. Hopefully, I'll be able to go out on another release in a few weeks.

Posted by Anne at 07:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is my sixth year doing raccoon foster care for WildCare but last weekend I got to do something I hadn’t done before: give a raccoon a bath!

We have a little singleton raccoon who came in about 2 weeks ago. He's the guy we got the message about after we got back from Santa Cruz. Anyway, he has to be on quarantine for 2 weeks before getting put with other raccoons to be sure he doesn’t have distemper. When he came in, he was dirty and flea-ridden. We killed the fleas, but without a family to groom him, he was still dirty and covered in flea-dirt. So, he needed a bath!

Fortunately, he is still really small and easy to handle. Frankly, it was rather fun to get him all sudsed-up and then have Steve rinse him off with a little water from the hose. His fur felt so clean afterward and he hasn’t been scratching nearly as much as before.

He's scheduled to get a new sister this weekend. After our shift at WildCare last Sunday, Steve went to someone's house to rescue a baby raccoon that was stranded under the floorboards. Originally he thought he was going to have to cut into the floor to get her, which the homeowner was okay with, but Steve was fortunately able to squeeze his lithe frame under the floor and grab the little orphan.

Due to their respective circumstances, she's at a lesser risk of having any illness than our boy was, so she's coming to our house this weekend after a one-week quarantine. This is good because our little man needs a friend in a big way.

Posted by Anne at 01:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have been meaning to post these pictures for weeks now. Sorry for the delay!

In April, Steve and I babysat a 5-day-old raccoon one afternoon while his foster parent took the afternoon off.

He was very tiny and stll had his umbilical cord attached. He was very cute, but I think the raccoons we typically care for are cuter. It's kind of like a newborn versus a 6-month-old. The 6-month-old does things and plays and is very entertaining. The newborn just sleeps a lot.

Posted by Anne at 08:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After a very slow start to the year, spring has finally arrived at WildCare. As soon as the first batch of ducklings arrive, you know all hell is about to break loose. Said first ducklings showed up last week, and we got our second batch on Sunday during our shift, as well as many other animals.

Within a 20 minute span, we had 4 animals come in that had been caught by a cat. 2 of them didn't make it. I love cats. Some of my best friends are cats. But please keep them inside if you can. They are a murderous bunch if you are the wrong size.

One of our poor feline-attack victims was an adorable baby fox squirrel. I am biased and think that raccoons are the cutest wild babies we get, but squirrels are an extremely close second.

The squirrel made it through Sunday, by the way. I won't know until our next shift how he does after that.

Posted by Anne at 08:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over the last 5 years of volunteering at WildCare, I have done things that I never would have believed I had the stomach for. I have given shots, sutured a gash in an opossum, cleaned up pounds of raccoon poop in one fell swoop, disemboweled various food items, and cleaned deep, superating puncture wounds. Honestly, I have greatly impressed myself since the Barker gag reflex is near legendary. Almost as legendary as the Barker toe. But every so often, something new comes along, something I've never seen before and it gets the best of me.

At this time of year, we get lots of first-year red tail hawks. We call them stupid juvies. They are on their own for the first time and finding the whole hunting thing to be more difficult than they imagined. Then it gets cold and rainy. They usually come in severely underweight or emaciated. This weekend we had one such patient, but with a new twist. It had finally managed to find itself an easy meal - it had managed to find a way into a chicken coop and killed the largest chicken there, a 10-pounder. It then proceeded to gorge itself. When the coop owner found it in with her chickens, she called the humane society to come and remove it. The officer got it out of the coop and tried to get it to fly away to no avail. Perhaps it was too weak. Perhaps it was simply too heavy.

We started making Looney Tunes chicken hawk jokes.

The chart notes said its crop was literally as big as a tennis ball when it came in Saturday. When we got there Sunday, the crop had not gone down in size and the food was pushing back upward and was in danger of blocking the glottis (airway).

So, Steve and one of the techs proceeded to remove some of the food while I held the mouth open. A couple of hours later, Steve and the assistant director of animal care had to remove significantly more food since it was pushing up again.

The strange thing was that, with the exception of several large feathers, everything rising to the surface was yellow chicken fat. It was like when you are separating fat from drippings to make gravy. Is it possible that fat would rise to the top of a hawk's crop like it does in a fat separator?

I don't know. All I know is it was disgusting. I had to leave the room. All told, they removed about 30 grams of fat and feathers from the burgeoning crop before it was small enough to put the hawk back in its cage. That's the size of a very large mouse.

Ewwww.

Posted by Anne at 06:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A couple of weeks ago, Steve and I babysat for some foster care raccoons while their foster parent was away for a week. All of the raccoons that we had looked after earlier this summer were in varying stages of depression, anxiety, and wildness. They had all come to WildCare a little older than the orphans we usually get, which meant they were already on the wild side. This is not a bad thing as it's easier to keep them wild for release. But it means that we have very little interaction with them and can't really let them out for a romp in our yard as they may not be easy to catch again.

Added to that this year, were the traumatic circumstances most of them came from, whether they were left alone for a week in the walls of San Quentin after their mother was removed or they watched another of god's creatures take a shotgun to their mother in front of them. I believe animals have emotions and experience pain, and raccoons are very social critters. I'm just saying these earlier raccoons were a bit depressed.

But these guys were different. They were late summer babies, coming in when they were just a few days old in July. When Steve and I got them for a week, they were still getting 2 bottles a day. We are master weaners (well, I'm a master weaner, Steve's just a wiener) and quickly got them onto solid food only. But, at this point, young as they were, they still saw us as caregivers. People often ask about keeping raccoon babies wild and the fact is, while they are being bottle-fed, they have to see us as a food source and not as a threat. We never snuggle with them or treat them like pets, but we have to be able to hold them at that stage. We start limiting our contact with them once they are fully weaned. Since we were just finishing their weaning, we were able to enjoy their company like we hadn't been able to the rest of the summer.

And so they got to play in our yard, frolicking in the water fountain and learning to climb up and down trees (2 separate skills, there).

Here are some of the photos from the first weekend.

Posted by Anne at 08:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last weekend Steve and I got to do one of my favorite things about volunteering at WildCare. We got to release some patients. Specifically, we got to release 6 orphaned raccoons that had grown into burly, strapping adolescents.

We found a great location for them in the woods near a creek, and not all that far from a small community in case they got desperate for food. It can be tough to find out that the Kibble Tree doesn't actually exist.

We passed a fruit and nut stand on the way to the release site and Steve joked about releasing them right there where there would be plenty of food. We managed to resist that particular temptation.

Two of these guys were raccoons that Steve and I had rescued as babies from a house in Sausalito. The homeowner had called a trapper to remove an adult raccoon living in the attic. It wasn't until after the trapper had taken the adult away and done his dirty deed that he homeowner realized there were babies in the attic, too. There were many things about this event that bear discussing as it was a cluster-f from the get go. I almost posted about it at the time, but didn't get to it. Just a hint to guide you on your way: if you trap a lactating female, there are probably babies in the area. I'm just sayin'. Suffice it to say, I'm grateful the homeowner called WildCare for the follow-up as we were able to rescue the babies from the attic and take them into care.

Steve and I had them in our cage for about 3 weeks before they joined the other four in a larger enclosure at WildCare. It is really neat to go through all of that, to save the babies and care for them and finally to let them go.

I've never shed a tear at a release although I know others who have. I am always able to keep an emotional distance because I know their end-point is in the wild. I just love seeing the little buggers be on their way.

Posted by Anne at 08:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The golden eagle was still at WildCare on Sunday and we got a couple of pictures this time. That's me feeding it. Steve is holding it, even though you can't see him.

I should note that the eagle has a pelvic injury that prevents it from grasping mice with its talons and self-feeding. This is the reason for the force-feeding.

Posted by Anne at 08:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

. . . That you get to hand feed a golden eagle. But I got to do just that on my shift at WildCare Sunday. Steve held it (and its massive talons) while I shoved mouse bits down its throat. No pictures this time, maybe next week if it is still there.

But here's a picture of Steve holding an osprey, another raptor we don't see very often. It's a fish eating raptor!

Posted by Anne at 08:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

We currently have 2 young raccoons in foster care at our house. One of them (Wild Thing) is very wild having just come into WildCare recently at 11 weeks of age. The other one (Pansy Boy) came in around the same time at 9 weeks old after being raised (illegally) as a pet since Memorial Day. Our challenge is to care for the wild one, allowing him to play and grow up, while trying to wild-up the tame one enough that he can be released at the end of the summer. Fortunately, they teach each other so much, our job mainly ends up being cook and maid service.

While still uncomfortable in our presence and unwilling to let us touch him, Wild Thing is less prone to growling as we approach and is starting to see us as a temporary food source. (This does not mean he will be habituated to humans. Raccoons wild-up nicely when they reach a certain age, just like every other teenager. It just means he won't be stressed all the time and we'll be able to weigh him and give him shots without losing an arm.) Meanwhile, Pansy Boy has already stopped chirping at our approach and trying to climb onto our shoulders. And he even shies away when we reach for him.

The 2 quickly became great friends and Pansy Boy is having a great time playing raccoon games for the first time in his life. He was adorable last night, literally bounding around the cage, almost rabbit-like, stealing food from Wild Thing and chasing his tail.

We were fortunate enough to have them come to us already weaned, so there are no bottles. We do our thing and let them do their thing with very little interaction. This is a great age to watch, though, as they play and experiment with new foods and shows of dominance.

Raised on human food like Rice Krispies, Pansy Boy is quickly taking to his raccoon diet. Here he is enjoying a piece of smelt which he saw for the first time only 3 days earlier.

And here's Wild Thing fishing for his dinner.

Posted by Anne at 08:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Every so often someone will come to WildCare and request our help in identifying a large spider they have in a box or to ask how they can keep raccoons from eating the koi in their pond. Fairly standard questions. But this weekend I had the most surreal conversation with a woman who wanted my very professional opinion. The County Civic Center has a lagoon on its property and is home to a very large number of domestic, wild, and hybrid ducks and geese. Said lagoon is a toxic cesspool; every bird we get at WildCare from that location gets designated as Typhoid Mary as it carries every possible intestinal parasite known to show up on a microscope slide. The birds that live on the lagoon also have terrible nutritional problems, including metabolic bone disease, since their "diet" is comprised almost solely of the bread the good people of Marin feed them every day. If bird flu is going to show up in Marin, I frankly wouldn't be surprised if the lagoon was the place. Frankly, the flock could use a little culling.

Well, apparently there has been a rash of killings at the lagoon. Possibly a coyote has found the smorgasbord of foie gras in the urban center. Possibly a misbehaving dog, with or without its miscreant owner, has been ravaging the pond. A few Sundays ago I took a call from a woman who, after reading an article in the Marin Independent Journal, thought the culprit was a river otter that had found its way into the lagoon. She wanted me to tell her everything I knew about the way otters would hunt these ducks and geese because she wanted to stake out the lagoon looking for the criminal mastermind and wanted to know what to look for.

Perhaps this is the time to mention that among the many interesting people who live in Marin, there is a group of ladies who are VERY attached to the birds at the Civic Center. Most of these birds that end up at WildCare are brought to us by one of these women. (We also have a "crazy pigeon lady" who searches for injured pigeons and brings in a good 80% of the pigeons we get every weekend, but that's a story for another day.)

At any rate, I didn't know much about the hunting behavior of otters and I implied that I wouldn't tell her anyway if it was her intent to stop the otter from catching its dinner. Apparently, one of the ducks had made its way to WildCare for a necropsy in which a volunteer vet had determined that the injuries were of the canine variety anyway.

Fast forward to this Sunday. There I am standing at the front desk, minding my own business, when I see a woman hovering in the doorway holding a plastic bread bag. "Can I help you with something?" I ask. Slowly she moves closer and timidly she says, "Yes, I found this at the Civic Center." Here I am thinking perhaps she has an injured animal in the bag and I need to get it from her and out of the plastic. Instead, she says, "I was wondering if you could tell me how long this duck has been dead."

She opens the bag, I look in. All that's in the bag is two duck feet.

Not knowing quite what to say, I tell her that I really can't tell her when the duck died (biting my tongue against saying "but I think it's too late to save it"). She keeps looking at me like she wants something further. So, I comment that I think it's interesting that the webbing on the feet is still intact. Based on the fact that the ants haven't picked the feet clean, perhaps the bird is recently deceased? She jumped on that with almost an "ah ha, so you think it died a short time ago?" She mentions that she's heard that there's an eye witness saying that he saw a coyote attacking a duck a few days ago. Well, if a coyote has found the lagoon he's in for some good eatin'. Actually, I didn't say exactly that, but I did mention the circle of life and all.

Still she looked at me as if she wanted something more. I told her again that I thought the intact webbing was interesting, but that identifying time-of-death really wasn't what we do there, and that most of the duck feet we see are still attached to the bird. Finally she left. Whether she was satisfied or not, I have no idea.

But suddenly I have an idea to expand the franchise even further: CSI: WildCare.

Posted by Anne at 07:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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."

Posted by Anne at 07:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oh those wacky raccoons. They can cause trouble.

Steve pointed me to this story about a raccoon in Cyprus who caused a major power outage after surviving an 11,000 volt electric shock. Poor fella is facing deportation!

And Melanie supplied this fine example of a stupid human getting exactly what he deserved. This dufus set his own house on fire trying to "encourage" a momma racoon and her babies to leave his attic. I particularly love the fact that, when asked if, knowing how it turned out, he would do the same thing again, the moron said yes. Answers like that make me think the fire department should charge him for putting out the fire he set.

The baby raccoons were rescued by the firemen and sent to a wildlife center.

I also find it amusing that the animal control person was catching these harmless babies with a terribly professional-looking catchpole, especially when the firemen were just snuggling them a few shots earlier. Although I know rabies is pretty prevalent in eastern raccoons, my theory is that this person knew she was going to be on video tape and decided to do things as by-the-book as possible.

Posted by Anne at 08:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Apart from my squeamishness with blood and all things medical, one of the reasons I never pursued my childhood desire to be a veterinarian was that I didn't think I could deal with euthanizing animals. It's never really been a huge problem at WildCare because I've never questioned the necessity for some of the animals to be euthanized, and they aren't people's pets . The snake whose spine is broken at the base of the head, the hawk with an infected compound fracture, the squirrel squished by a car, these are things that can't be fixed and it is merciful to euthanize the animal. Still, there's nothing quite like having to euthanize the first baby raccoons of the season.

They came in on Friday after momma raccoon failed to come back to her den for four days. Steve and I babysat three of the five over Saturday night. They weren't suckling the unfamiliar formula yet and feeding five baby raccoons can take a long time in the best of circumstances, let alone with high-maintenance babies. So we took a few to relieve the team leader at least for one night. Unfortunately, three of the five babies started having seizures, along with other symptoms of distemper and they had to be put down. We think it's likely that momma raccoon probably died of distemper herself. The other two have some symptoms as well, but they haven't started having seizures yet, so the team leader is just giving them supportive care and we are hoping for the best.

We've seen an unusually high number of adult raccoons with distemper this spring, so we knew it was going to be a bad season. But having to watch these wonderful babies be euthanized was very difficult today and generally threw a pall over the whole day. Sorry to be such a downer, but really what a shitty day.

Posted by Anne at 08:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks to JoLynn for this amusing, but strange, article. As many of you know, Steve and I do foster care for raccoons and have become quite fond of the buggers. We love hearing stories about how smart they are. Once, when discussing ways of keeping wild animals out of yards (like anyone would want to), someone suggested a Scarecrow for anything but raccoons, since they would just turn it into their own personal water park.

This article from a German news source is just a bit surreal. Apparently in 1934, the Third Reich introduced raccoons in Germany for hunting as fur-bearing animals. The raccoons, being notoriously adaptable, have obviously flourished and are now considered quite the nuisance.

Where the story starts to get strange is when the Third Reich becomes a metaphor for the raccoons, as in:
"Hundreds of thousands have fanned out to Belgium, Luxembourg, the Czech Republic and France. The news caught the ire of Britain's Sun tabloid, which warned its readers that "Nazi raccoons" were "just across the Channel" and "on the warpath ... in a furry blitzkrieg"."

Where the story gets downright surreal is when you take a look at the picture included with the story.

Posted by Anne at 01:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)