General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Raccoon update [View all]Lasher
(29,377 posts)Your county health department and doctor should make that call after lab testing has been conducted.
Hunting season probably ended there on December 31. Regardless, there isn't a department of natural resources in the country that would blame your father for killing this coon. Quite the contrary, they should encourage any effort to help control rabies. Your father probably doesn't need a license since he is a parent of the resident landowner (you). That's the way it is here in WV.
Do your best to identify this coon by appearance and/or behavior before your dad shoots it. See what your county health department says. Tell them your father is about to deliver this specimen and ask how to go about that. I'm pretty sure they are the ones who are supposed to coordinate the lab testing.
This makes me think of behavior I've seen in black bears. At a nearby dump people would go to feed the bears that were rummaging. I took my family to see them but we wouldn't get out of the car or roll down windows. Most everybody else had their families out there feeding the bears by hand. Even little kids were doing it.
When people ran out of donuts or cookies or whatever they'd brought, the bears didn't like it. I saw one bite one of the people when the food was gone, because he was mad the kitchen had just closed. It was just a little nip but then again so were yours.
Coons are a lot like little bears. Maybe that one, like the bear I watched that day, was just mad because it expected food and didn't get it.