A Toronto Ontario man took a shovel to a family of raccoons that were damaging his gardens. Neighbours, woken by screams, called Animal Services. Meanwhile the mother raccoon came down to the injured baby that had been hit with the spade and picked it up and carried it away. A second pup was taken to Procyon Wildlife, a Beeton, Ont., wildlife rehabilitation centre.
This story has hit a nerve in Toronto where raccoons have become an issue. It has raised ethical and practical questions about how humans deal with wild animals in an urban environment.
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Samantha, named by a volunteer, now sports a bright pink splint. After quarantine, she will be socialized with other young raccoons rescued from the same area before being returned to a green space in the fall within 15 kilometres of the Bloor St. W. and Lansdowne Ave. area where she was attacked, as is required by law. Residents in the neighbourhood said Samantha’s mother kept returning to the backyard looking for her missing baby in the days following, but has since given up her search.
This story has hit a nerve in Toronto where raccoons have become an issue. It has raised ethical and practical questions about how humans deal with wild animals in an urban environment.
Link
I use a lot of methods to keep pests out of my garden. None of them involve whacking or stabbing at critters with implements.
If you live in the city -contact animal control or whatever wild life service in you area. Both usually offer a cage to trap the animal in and they take care of it from there.
Skunks and raccoons are beneficial because they dig up the grubs, eat mice and small pocket mice.
As for the "brain worms." We have problems with hantavirus out here. You need to treat raccoon scat the same way. You need to be aware of the diseases that wild animals carry.
What are you doing ingesting it anyways? Really.
Raccoons, etc can be pests to an extreme degree, but being downright barbaric to them with abuse is not excusable. It disgusts me how many people can rationalize it. You people do realize we have been taking over their space with our ridiculous urbanization right?
Like the few on this thread, trap and release is a much better option.