The Wonders of Radio and the Eeeevils of Raccoons

Alright.  So the most unexciting interesting happenstance occurred yesterday:  I was able to speak on the Ontario Today show on CBC Radio 1.... while driving in my car.  Before you report me to the police, however, I was using a hands-free Bluetooth device.  I even pulled over to the side of the road--not because I was an overly cautious outstanding citizen (although I like to think I am some times), but rather because the CBC Radio Person advised me to pull over, so they could hear me better.

Anyway... it is a slight ordeal to get on the air for this show.  My last attempt took 10 minutes and 27 busy calls before I dejectedly gave up.  This time it took me 5 minutes and 17 busy calls before I squeezed myself into the lineup.  Out of the seven callers (or thereabouts), I am the second-last one, I believe.  So if you follow the link, or have the CBC app on your iPhone, I am about three-quarters of the way through the show lineup (you can click on the title of this particular blog to access the show).

http://www.cbc.ca/ontariotoday/2011/06/01/man-versus-raccoon/

I sent a quick panic text off to a few people (while the car was stopped, yes), and then within a few minutes, I was hearing my voice over the Bluetooth speakers, talking with the host of the show.  A small note, you cannot have the radio turned on at this point as there is a half-second delay from phone speaker to radio speakers... and it is just too darn confusing to listen to your voice out of your mouth, on the phone speakers, and then out of car speakers.

That is basically it.  Nothing more interesting than that.  I was able to say my fill on how I have dealt with raccoons in my neck of the woods... and then it was off to another caller.  Yup.  That is it.  My 1:05 minutes of fame on the radio.


What I WILL say, on a related topic (and here is where my rant is ramping up) is how much I despise raccoons.  To the uninitiated, raccoons may seem cute, furry, and inventive, but don't let first impressions fool you (although they truly are furry).  Raccoons wear a mask around their eyes for a reason:  they are conniving break-and-enter artists, nature's fat and bold vigilantes, well deserving to be shipped somewhere in the northern part of our country, away from urban temptations.

Yes, I give them props for being inventive (as animals go) but I certainly do not give them props for their poops.

 Thusly, here is a story for you:  One day I was looking out my bedroom window, and I spy with my little eye something green growing on the top of my shed roof, on top of a healthy layering of two-inch thick decomposing vegetation and dirt (or so I thought).  Now that I think about it, I am not sure how I reasoned that two inches of dirt could end up on my shed roof...

Annnnyyyyway, I pull up a ladder, climb on to the adjoining fence separating my shed from my next-door neighbour, get a leg on my shed roof, and begin clearing up the green plant growth and brown gunk.  3/4s of the way through, grunting and groaning as I try to reach the hard-to-reach places, I hear a voice off in the not-too-far distance, "Are you OK?"

I respond that "Yes I am, I am just cleaning off all this plant growth/dirt."  My newly met neighbour, bearing the same name as Yours Truly, walks up to the fence along our bordering back yards, points up to his shed roof, and says in a pitying, shake-of-the-head learned voice, "You do know that racoons have pooped all over my shed roof....?"  He leaves his sentence in an open-ended question.  I look over onto his shed roof, and I see well-formed gifts of raccoon poopy.

Now, it doesn't take a genius, and it certainly doesn't take me but a few seconds before I put "poo and poo" together, and realize that the brown gunk I have been determinedly cleaning off my roof is just a smoothed out, pasted, green-growing fertilizer of the raccoon variety.  And there was a lot of it.  <shudder>.

And the reason I shudder, if you wonder, is not just because I was handling the disgusting discards of Nature's Answer to Man's Dominating Crapulence*, but more to the point, it was because of all the awful things that could be contained in this aforementioned gunk.  Granted I garnered this from the "interweb" (is that what kids call it these days...?), but still, having this knowledge--fake or real--does not help my memory of the occasion.

Now before you get too spooked and refuse to shake my proffered hand next we meet, I was wearing heavy-duty working gloves.  Notwithstanding I finished the job (who else was going to do it), and the gloves now lie quarantined over my laundry tub, waiting for a hot wash.

And here we circle back to the original issue:  I despise raccoons.  And I despise them even further for the Achilles tendon our animal-rights laws have burdened us with:  that we can do nothing about these vermin.  Nothing.  We cannot call a company to trap these natural wrecking machines unless they enter our house first.  But then, the damage is already done.

The Reason (heard on the radio):  Because they are territorial.  Com'on!  Really????  Let's put this into perspective.  To use an extreme uncouth comparison, what if I suspected some individuals of terrorism?  I call the police, RCMP, whoever, and they say that, "I'm sorry, we cannot arrest/detain these individuals until they have blown up a building, not before."  I try to explain, "I see a van, I see people with guns, I see it parked suspiciously outside a building... but nothing can be done????"

"Nope.  Sorry.   Terrorists are territorial.  We have to wait for them to blow something up before we can arrest."

Buh.....?!!?!?

Of course, by the time the above happens, people have been hurt or worse, the damage has been done, and it will cost everyone a lot more than if the evil individuals could have been stopped beforehand. 

To continue, let's pretend that the terrorists do strike, the RCMP does get their man, take them into custody... using the the Rules of Raccoon Release and Capture, the RCMP would then be obliged to not put the terrorists in jail or prosecute them, but they would have to release them two or three blocks away into another urban neighbourhood.  Why, oh why?  Well, again it is because, "They are territorial.  They have become so used to living (terrorizing) in human urban centers, they would not survive in jail."

Drawing this example back to raccoons, if and when a critter company receives the call to catch the raccoons, because the dirty poop machines have become too used to living around humans, they cannot be released into the wild.  They would not "survive."  So they are packed up, and released to terrorize another neighbourhood a few blocks away.**  This is the only instance where NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) appropriately applies.


A harsh, over-the-top example, huh?  But hopefully you get my point:  If a group of raccoons are hanging around your yard, you have done what you could to humanely deter them, and nothing can be done until they tear off your roof shingles, enter your attic, poop and tear up your insulation... there is definitely something wrong with the system.  Who is more important:  a human, or a raccoon?


Of course, I do not for one second condone torturing, or beating raccoons with any device (although I can certainly understand the frustration that the now ill-famous Toronto man experienced when he took things a bit too far).  Cruelty to animals is just plain wrong.

I do, however, support the notion that we humans have to protect our homes from the likes of these critters, and need better assistance from the city to do so.  Look:  aside from marriage, a home is probably the biggest investment one can make in life.  I don't want to sit idly aside while raccoons poo and tear up said investment.


Now circle back to me speaking on the CBC:  On the show I said what I have done to protect my house, my God-given investment, from animals (doesn't the Bible give an example in the Old Testament of Israel needing to to subdue the wild creatures in their promised land....?).  I have spent a ton of money, and I have watched my neighbour nail 6 in spikes (spiky side down) into our fence to deter raccoons from nearing our house.

If, however, in the dead of night you hear a particular"EEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekkkkkk!" sailing over your house trailing off into the distant depths of the night, it is because I have used up all currently legal means in dealing with these creatures, and have resorted to the use of my own raccoon-propelled-catapult, which humanely launches any masked trespasser off into the far depths of the wild, where they truly, truly belong.




Asterisk Notes:
*Not an intentional play on words:  the word "crapulence" taken from the "Who Shot Mr. Burns" Simpsons episode.  "Smithers had thwarted my earlier attempt to take candy from a baby. But with him out of the picture, I was free to wallow in my own crapulence".

**Take what I say at face-value.  My facts may be wrong.... but this is what I recall on the Management of Racoons.