Hoarding Case: Raccoons!

Thursday, August 16th, 2012 the Albion MMCR house was overrun with volunteers helping to accommodate all the cats recovered from the hoarding case on the state's east side.

There was an assembly line set up to transfer all the male rescues from their temporary holding area in the basement to the first floor, where they were checked over, given all needed shots, numbered, tagged and had paperwork completed. Then the groggy males were passed to Dr. Joe's medical team where they were neutered and partially-revived before becoming a proud member of MMCR's feral cat community on a 70+ acre farm.

This is where I come in. My assignment for the day was to transport the carriers to the barn holding room (everybody has to have a skill) prior to their release later in the day. Another volunteer and I went in earlier in the morning to clean and sweep, when he noticed a pair of raccoons in an igloo-style dog house in the holding room. In looking around we also saw several more on a high shelf in the opposite corner of the room.

Now, this isn't a large open barn but a walled-off section about 20'x15' with one window, one door and no lights. Guess who can see better than we can. We continued to finish cleaning the room and decided to leave the cats in their carriers in the barn until someone came up with a solution for the raccoons.

Once all 36 cats had been transferred to the barn, it was time to kick some raccoon butt.

My thoughts were: steel-toed boots, Stihl 9 layer protective chain-saw clothing, heavy gloves, drugs from Dr. Joe (split 50-50 between me and the raccoons), and-- if MMCR has it-- a small tactical nuclear weapon.

I went back up to the house to see what was available from Sarah. She grabbed a 4 foot animal snare and said, "Follow me".

We went back to the barn and she proceeded to catch the two in the igloo with the snare and turned her attention to the high shelf.  She wasn't tall enough to reach up there so she grabbed a flimsy plastic shelf and jumped on it (if OHSA could see her now) and snared 5 more raccoons. My help consisted of holding a shovel, figuring I'd get one shot if one got out of the snare. The barn was now cleared and we could get the cats into the holding room.

Oh, did I mention she did all this barefoot, in blue jeans and a tie-dyed MMCR t-shirt? 

I got schooled yesterday on raccoons and I am impressed.