Released May 22, 2009

JACKSONVILLE, Ark. - Catherine Canfield was startled look up from a game of bridge to see a masked bandit looking in the window of her Jacksonville kitchen. She tapped on the window in hopes of scaring the creature away, but it scarcely even flinched.

"I don’t like them," she says of the raccoons. "They’re mean little things. They scare me to death. You know, they can get in your attic and everywhere. And they are not afraid at all of people."

Canfield’s neighbor, Ron Sawyer, worries that the raccoons around their homes will provoke a fight with Snoopy, his Boston terrier. The pesky creatures do know where the food sources around the neighborhood are, so the Sawyers are careful to pick up any food they might leave out for Snoopy before the sun goes down and the raccoons come out to prowl.

"We learned the hard way that if we left food out, they would be here, for sure, to collect it," says Sawyer.

He tried putting 4 x 4 boards on top of his trash cans to keep the varmints from making a mess on his lawn, but that causes problems with the way trash is collected, so he keeps the cans in his garage overnight and moving it to the curb on the morning of pickup.

Sawyer and Canfield aren’t suffering alone. Raccoons steal pet food, ransack trash cans and wreak general havoc in various parts of the state.

"We don’t have data to support how many homes have problems with raccoons and opossums," says Becky McPeake, wildlife specialist with the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture Cooperative Extension Service. "I suspect the problem is substantial. Problem-encounters with deer and black bears in urban areas are more likely to grab headlines."

Raccoons are adaptable creatures she says, and they have adjusted well to living around our homes.

Lamar James, communications specialist with the Cooperative Extension Service, has had his share of trouble with raccoons.

"My neighborhood in Jacksonville has tons of varmints that tear open trash bags and eat cat food I leave out. They wash their grubby little paws in their water dish," says James.

The state’s nuisance wildlife code says property owners may use live traps for the removal of nuisance wildlife, such as raccoons and opossums, provided trapping is done according to ordinances and statutes established by their municipalities. Captured wildlife, according to the code, is to be released alive and unharmed outside their municipalities’ boundaries within 24 hours of their capture. Traps must bear the name and address, vehicle operator’s license number or vehicle license number of the people setting them.

James caught and relocated three raccoons and a possum in a trap he bought at a local farm store, but there are plenty more he fears. One neighbor had an urban wildlife trapper take care of the raccoons around her house.

"The trapper told me to use vanilla wafers as bait to keep from trapping one of my cats," says James. "Cats aren’t attracted to cookies."

McPeake says extension service personnel were also very successful at trapping raccoons at the 4-H Center in Ferndale several years ago using vanilla wafers. Trapping in that area was geared at educating participants at the 4-H Forestry and Wildlife Camp.

"The traps which were more successful were those closest to the garbage bin," she says. "Here at the state office, we have had raccoons get stuck in our garbage bins in back of the building and just recently, one got stuck on a rooftop. We propped tree limbs for them to climb out of their situation."

Aside from trapping and relocating raccoons, people can follow Sawyer’s lead and learn to peacefully co-exist with them by keeping pet food out of their reach and securing the lids of garbage cans, says McPeake.

Sawyer, who has had little luck with trapping raccoons, says he hasn’t spotted any lately, probably because he has removed the temptations that bring them to his home - but he knows they’re out there.

"They’re just smarter than I am with the traps," he says. "You don’t see them, but you can hear them sometimes at night. They’re not causing a problem right now. You kind of adapt to their being here. They live here, too."

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http://www.uaex.edu/news/may2009/0522raccoons.htm

Editor: Elizabeth Fortune, (501) 671-2120, efortune@uaex.edu