Adventures in Wildlife
Jun. 11th, 2005 03:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
saffronhareI had the strange honor of bringing a baby racoon to wildlife rescue today. Ungrateful little bastard snarled at me the whole time, but that's the way it goes.
See, we saw the little bugger yesterday about lunchtime, when it snarled at me from its station under the mailbox (sort of up against the nook created where the house meets the garage). Impressive sound, coming from such a tiny creature. We steered clear for the rest of the afternoon and evening, careful to keep children and dogs away from where it was trying to make itself very tiny and fierce at the same time.
We watched real carefully and didn't see any sign that a parent was nearby, but decided to let it be overnight, just in case. The poor thing was still there in the morning -- huddled up in the rain with nothing that looked like nesting. Soggy and cold after a long night in the rain, it was still admirably ferocious.
This was a problem. I decided to do some homework and make a few phone calls. Turns out Animal Control won't come get wild animals (probably should've known that already). They said I could call the KS Department of Wildlife & Parks, Operation Wildlife or some "critter control" company. Wildlife & Parks wouldn't be open until Monday morning. And I didn't want to pay somebody to come get this little thing and probably kill it. Operation Wildlife would make sure it was healthy and find it a habitat a bit further away from the front of my house. The catch? I had to bring it in myself.
Ha. Ha-ha. They weren't kidding. How big was it? they asked. Did it seem to have teeth yet? About the size of a Nerf football, I answered -- and yes, it has teeth. You should probably wear gloves, then, they said. And did we mention that the intake center closes at 5 p.m. on Saturdays? Oh, great.
Time to take balls in hand, so to speak.
After a heartening cup of Darjeeling tea, I loaded the girls into the car so they'd be safely out of my way and relatively unable to disassemble anything; and wandered into the garage to find a box with a lid, some tape (to hold the damn box shut) and gloves. Then, I decided it might be nice to put a towel into the box to provide a bit of warmth. I also put in a bowl containing some bread dipped in milk and part of a smashed-up hot dog. Kind of a Stupid Human Trick that, but it seemed like a neighborly thing to do.
With all this activity, the racoon had squooshed into a very nice corner spot...back under the junipers and near one of the basement window wells. Dripping wet, I shimmied back behind the juniper...talking to the racoon and whispering prayers to Herne the whole time. It was silly of me to be jittery about this -- after all, the animal was definitly more frightened of me -- but there you go.
Managed to get the box sideways into the corner and sort of scoot it the racoon's wet little snarling ass. Picture putting a glass over a bee, so you can slide a piece of paper under the glass and then bring it outside. That was the theory anyway, except the open side of my box was now against the house. After a few now what? moments, I started to slide the lid down, only to discover that the animal wasn't going into the box. Rather, it was trying to climb up the foundation to get out of the box. Effing great. Where's a tin of shortcake cups when you need them?
I decided to use the racoon's grumpy nature to my own advantage and sort of scrabbled my fingers against the bottom of the box (which was facing me now, since the box was sideways). True to form, the bugger leapt to attack the source of the sound and I was able to clamp the lid onto the box. After a brief pep talk with myself, I managed to scramble back out from behind the junipers without dropping the box. Whew.
Bugger (my nickname for the racoon now), was reaching through the handle-holds of the box and trying to get the lid off. I certainly couldn't put it in the car for a drive to 75th & Niemann like THAT. We would have been on the news for sure, and not for good reasons.
But where was the tape? Shit, I'd forgoteen the tape. I plopped a handy flower pot on top of the box, assured the girls (closed up in the car) that everthing was Just Fine and set off to find some tape, which turned out to be very far away. After a few more minutes of cursing (at the tape) and orders to the racoon not to give me any trouble Or Else, I wrapped the box in a furniture blanket and loaded the whole shebang into the back of the car. The furniture blanket was there to muffle sound -- so the car sounds wouldn't be so loud for Bugger, but also so any possible snarling wouldn't be frightening for the kids. I also wanted another layer of protection in case Bugger managed to escape the box with some sort of racoon-ish cleverness, which I was loathe to underestimate.
Mercifully, all was quiet on the ride to Operation Wildlife. You know, except for questions from the kids.
Once we got there, carrying the box in made quite the parade -- with both princesses leading the way and opening doors for me, heralding our arrival. There wasn't anybody else there, so we got to watch through a lovely plexiglass window as Bugger was unloaded. Thankfully, the vet there confirmed that he looked half-starved. (I say "thankfully" because I was terribly worried that we might have "rescued" Bugger from some perfectly ordinary racoon parent-child arrangement, you know?) She was pretty sure that Bugger hadn't had any nourishment for a couple of days and probably wouldn't have lived long. She also confirmed that having a racoon nest so close to human contact would have been a Bad Thing anyway.
It was very satisfying to watch his (yes, its sex was confirmed) indignation at having an astounding number of cockleburrs pulled out of his private areas and then being warmed/fluffed with a blow dryer. The snarling eventually tired him out and he decided to pretend we weren't there with a magnificently anthromorphic gesture -- covering his face with his hands. The vet decided that warranted a photo, which should be up on the OWL site sometime soon.
Thus ended our morning adventures. Now, back to the relatively simple challenges of Saturday afternoon. And another cup of tea, for chrissakes.
See, we saw the little bugger yesterday about lunchtime, when it snarled at me from its station under the mailbox (sort of up against the nook created where the house meets the garage). Impressive sound, coming from such a tiny creature. We steered clear for the rest of the afternoon and evening, careful to keep children and dogs away from where it was trying to make itself very tiny and fierce at the same time.
We watched real carefully and didn't see any sign that a parent was nearby, but decided to let it be overnight, just in case. The poor thing was still there in the morning -- huddled up in the rain with nothing that looked like nesting. Soggy and cold after a long night in the rain, it was still admirably ferocious.
This was a problem. I decided to do some homework and make a few phone calls. Turns out Animal Control won't come get wild animals (probably should've known that already). They said I could call the KS Department of Wildlife & Parks, Operation Wildlife or some "critter control" company. Wildlife & Parks wouldn't be open until Monday morning. And I didn't want to pay somebody to come get this little thing and probably kill it. Operation Wildlife would make sure it was healthy and find it a habitat a bit further away from the front of my house. The catch? I had to bring it in myself.
Ha. Ha-ha. They weren't kidding. How big was it? they asked. Did it seem to have teeth yet? About the size of a Nerf football, I answered -- and yes, it has teeth. You should probably wear gloves, then, they said. And did we mention that the intake center closes at 5 p.m. on Saturdays? Oh, great.
Time to take balls in hand, so to speak.
After a heartening cup of Darjeeling tea, I loaded the girls into the car so they'd be safely out of my way and relatively unable to disassemble anything; and wandered into the garage to find a box with a lid, some tape (to hold the damn box shut) and gloves. Then, I decided it might be nice to put a towel into the box to provide a bit of warmth. I also put in a bowl containing some bread dipped in milk and part of a smashed-up hot dog. Kind of a Stupid Human Trick that, but it seemed like a neighborly thing to do.
With all this activity, the racoon had squooshed into a very nice corner spot...back under the junipers and near one of the basement window wells. Dripping wet, I shimmied back behind the juniper...talking to the racoon and whispering prayers to Herne the whole time. It was silly of me to be jittery about this -- after all, the animal was definitly more frightened of me -- but there you go.
Managed to get the box sideways into the corner and sort of scoot it the racoon's wet little snarling ass. Picture putting a glass over a bee, so you can slide a piece of paper under the glass and then bring it outside. That was the theory anyway, except the open side of my box was now against the house. After a few now what? moments, I started to slide the lid down, only to discover that the animal wasn't going into the box. Rather, it was trying to climb up the foundation to get out of the box. Effing great. Where's a tin of shortcake cups when you need them?
I decided to use the racoon's grumpy nature to my own advantage and sort of scrabbled my fingers against the bottom of the box (which was facing me now, since the box was sideways). True to form, the bugger leapt to attack the source of the sound and I was able to clamp the lid onto the box. After a brief pep talk with myself, I managed to scramble back out from behind the junipers without dropping the box. Whew.
Bugger (my nickname for the racoon now), was reaching through the handle-holds of the box and trying to get the lid off. I certainly couldn't put it in the car for a drive to 75th & Niemann like THAT. We would have been on the news for sure, and not for good reasons.
But where was the tape? Shit, I'd forgoteen the tape. I plopped a handy flower pot on top of the box, assured the girls (closed up in the car) that everthing was Just Fine and set off to find some tape, which turned out to be very far away. After a few more minutes of cursing (at the tape) and orders to the racoon not to give me any trouble Or Else, I wrapped the box in a furniture blanket and loaded the whole shebang into the back of the car. The furniture blanket was there to muffle sound -- so the car sounds wouldn't be so loud for Bugger, but also so any possible snarling wouldn't be frightening for the kids. I also wanted another layer of protection in case Bugger managed to escape the box with some sort of racoon-ish cleverness, which I was loathe to underestimate.
Mercifully, all was quiet on the ride to Operation Wildlife. You know, except for questions from the kids.
Once we got there, carrying the box in made quite the parade -- with both princesses leading the way and opening doors for me, heralding our arrival. There wasn't anybody else there, so we got to watch through a lovely plexiglass window as Bugger was unloaded. Thankfully, the vet there confirmed that he looked half-starved. (I say "thankfully" because I was terribly worried that we might have "rescued" Bugger from some perfectly ordinary racoon parent-child arrangement, you know?) She was pretty sure that Bugger hadn't had any nourishment for a couple of days and probably wouldn't have lived long. She also confirmed that having a racoon nest so close to human contact would have been a Bad Thing anyway.
It was very satisfying to watch his (yes, its sex was confirmed) indignation at having an astounding number of cockleburrs pulled out of his private areas and then being warmed/fluffed with a blow dryer. The snarling eventually tired him out and he decided to pretend we weren't there with a magnificently anthromorphic gesture -- covering his face with his hands. The vet decided that warranted a photo, which should be up on the OWL site sometime soon.
Thus ended our morning adventures. Now, back to the relatively simple challenges of Saturday afternoon. And another cup of tea, for chrissakes.
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no subject
Date: 2005-06-12 12:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-12 02:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-12 02:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-12 03:07 am (UTC)I also don't know what sort of poison ivy-ish stuff was growing all over the junipers. We'll have to wait and see what sort of curses little Bugger leveled at me -- because the way he sounded, it sure wasn't anything nice!
*snort* You are my hero for at least the week.
Date: 2005-06-12 06:33 am (UTC)Applause!!!
Date: 2005-06-12 08:17 pm (UTC)