For those that followed the entire saga of the raccoon bite

[steve2470]

169. now for my raccoon mini-story

I read the entire thread and my memory got jogged about our raccoons in our back yard.

Our metal trash cans were in our back yard (back when the garbage guys had to go get them back there), and the raccoons would crawl under the 9 feet high chain link fence with barbed wire on top, to feast on our garbage. Behind us was a municipal park that had raccoons in it. This was around 1970. The raccoons came from the park, of course. By feasting on the garbage, they would rattle the metal trash cans in the middle of the night and disturb the neighbors.

I guess my dad was braver than I thought, but he would put a 6 feet long rectangular cage (see image below)



with a trap door back by the cans. The raccoon would crawl in the cage to get the bait (piece of steak I think) and the trap door would slam shut behind him or her.

Next morning we'd go out to inspect the cage and voila, some mornings a raccoon would be in there, mad as hell and hissing at us. My dad would load up the trusty station wagon and take the trapped raccoon out to the middle of the boondocks (maybe 25 miles from downtown back then) and let the critter go. He would wear gloves when handling the cage but damn the raccoon would lash out furiously at him. Then they would run out of the cage fast as hell into the forest. We did this about 4 times I think.

I think I wore gloves too. I'm glad neither of us got bitten. Again, I'm glad you're safe and sound now and getting back to normal !