Raccoons

[carra3]

I have raccoons digging through my planter gardens containing potatoes, carrots, lettuce, peas, strawberries, and onions. There was raccoon feces in my potato planter, and evidence of raccoons digging up and eating my carrots. I am positive it was raccoons because I just saw 3 or them fighting on my deck at 4am, and the feces matches Google images.

I know that raccoon feces can contain toxic roundworm. There was a fair amount of it in the potato planter, and all of the planters are basically next to each other.

Is it safe to eat any of my vegetables?

 

[cpp gardener]

As long as you wash them first, you’ll be okay.

 

[Lukas]

Why are you calling me a racoon ??? And let me eat in peace, inflation has been hard enough for me.
Sincerely, the Plantswallower5000

 

[DirtMechanic]

Thatmay be why racoons wash their food. It pays to be careful. Something stinky might keep them away. Onion or garlic oils for example

 

[cntrlwagdnr]

Racoons do not actually wash their food. They have very little natural saliva compared to most animals, so they often moisten it. I have seen them pull stuff right out of swampy muddy pools and eat it. They relocate easily and don't return, so if it's legal where you are, you can live trap them and release them elsewhere in a nice wild racoon friendly place. Best bait is oddly enough cheap dry dog food. Sprinkle a little on the ground near the trap entrance and handful in the trap. Trust me - it works! 23 racoons one year, though in my case I took them to animal control and for $5 they gave them a health check and released them somewhere they were appreciated.

 

[cpp gardener]

I don’t know about Wyoming, but in California you can’t legally relocate wild animals. Check with animal control to see if it’s OK.

 

[DirtMechanic]

Our fish and game asks we not relocate them. But we are also in a county rated as extreme risk for rabies

 

[Meadowlark]

...I took them to animal control and for $5 they gave them a health check and released them somewhere they were appreciated.

Somewhere they were appreciated...

In my experience they definitely will return to the capture point unless the relocation is many miles away.

According to Bing AI:

https://www.bing.com/search?pglt=43...ajBqMagCALACAA&FORM=ANNTA1&PC=HCTS&showconv=1

Raccoons should be released at least ten to fifteen miles from the place they were trapped, otherwise, they will just come right back.

My experience says more than 15 miles is required. Better to dispatch them humanly.

 

[cntrlwagdnr]

Well we lived in Oregon at the time and the law has changed there since then too. The release location the animal control were using was more then 20 miles away. They don't do that anymore, they just kill them. At the time I could legally have done that myself too, but unfortunately, it wasn't the racoons' fault. We lived in town, but on a pocket of several arces with a stream and small lake. Some people were feeding them, which was totally unnecessary (except - maybe - in prolonged extreme cold weather) so we were overrun with them and whenever they were away, everyone else's small pets got eaten. Plus they get distemper epidemics when there are too many of them and then they spread it to pets and other animals too. I trapped until I didn't catch in every trap every night. Then I felt they were back to a nature population - or maybe they got trap-shy - anyway their problem behaviors ceased. I believe that feeding them is now illegal too there - they are included in "baiting of wild animals".

Interesting that down there, road kill is mainly racoons for a number of years, then it switches to possums, then back to raccoons again, etc. That's becasue they compete for the same food sources and racoons are better at it. Then they over populate and die back from distemper outbreaks and the possums reign again for a while.

And please no comments about people keeping their pets in at night. Racoons are not actually naturally nocternal, only around people in built up areas where they hunt after dark to avoid us. We had lots of them around in the daytime. (We did not allow our pets out at night, BTW.)