Raccoon Season

'tis the season....

     ..... for raccoons that is.

The baby raccoons have started to arrive at the Lindsay Wildlife Museum, their moms victims of cars and dogs, and our team of volunteers is mobilizing for kit-duty. Tonight we kicked it off with a refresher training course on safety, and wildlife handling -- and now it's just a matter of time before we start the work.

One thing is very clear from this work. It's hard to raise wildlife without harming yourself or the animal. Find something wild that needs help? Find a species expert - don't try to raise them yourself!

Pictured below. A kit from my very first batch of raccoons at 4 weeks old. This year I'll be babysitter should any longer term care givers be out of town.

 

Comments

[Fantasy Writer Guy]

Oh my god. How wildly adorable.

[BlogKING]

Oh very cute raccoon :) Tell me his name :) from BlogKING

[Heida]

hey BlogKing - you might totally laugh, but that was raccoon #1528 *smile*. As part of the effort to keep these guys wild (in preparation for their ultimate release), we keep our 'distance' from them. Their only reference is an assession number from their entry into the hospital. As beautiful as they are, we also try to teach them that humans aren't their buddies, so we keep quite a distance from them emotionally as we work with them. Absolutely no bonding is allowed. It's tough, but worth it when we see them released back into the wild!