I found this guy climbing my walls

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Hasaf

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I hope the occasional cute picture isn't too much of a rules violation.

While drinking my coffee I heard a bumping on my walls. This little guy was climbing the wall of my house. That can is stuck! He isn't screaming in pain, so it isn't "shoot him" time yet.

I can't pull it off him and I just moved and don't have all my tools here. So, I called the conservation department, someone is on the way with welding gloves and a pair of tinsnips.

By the way, that isn't one of my cans; so he must have walked quite a ways with that on his head.

Burglar-in-a-can-2.jpg
Burglar-in-a-can-2.jpg
 
The Conservation guy cut with tinsnips as I held the capture pole with the loop. The can was a soup can that uses a pop-top. This created what I expected, the edge is basically ramped in. This made it easy for the critter to get his head into it, but impossible to get back out.

For small animal, it was surprisingly strong. After freeing it, we led the coon to a tree line and then released him from the capture loop.
 
I had a live trap set for coons. I had it out there for a good 3 months and caught and dispatched a coon nearly every night! I'd catch two a night if I set a leg hold trap for 'em, too. No use, can't thin the danged things out to any appreciable degree, so I gave up. Now I just leave 'em alone since I don't keep chickens anymore. I'll see 4 or 5 of 'em on my game camera at times. They're a scourge. :D

I trapped 'em around 1979-'80 and was getting up to 40 bucks a pelt for 'em. Too bad there's no market for fur anymore, at least not in Texas. I could make serious money in the winter on the things.
 
The only 2 places I know of in Florida where coons are scarce, and therefore not a problem, are in the Everglades because of pythons and on St. Vincent Island due to the red wolf population there. The rest of the state is overrun with them.

Around here they are the main carriers of rabies. I have killed 2 of them in the daytime in my yard that were acting like they were drugged. I took one to the Health Dept. but never heard anything back from them.
 
Last year, where I work, which to put it generally, is land management, we were running into a sick coon every week for around two months. We are not authorized to dispatch them. We called the DNR, who happen to have a game warden office within two miles, the game warden came out walked right up to the coon and leashed it with the pole snare thingy and dumped it into a container in his truck and went away. Never heard anything from the DNR but there were rumors around the area about rabid coons and one instance made the news in town near where I live......which is ten miles from where I work.....
 
That is the first time I've seen a Coon in such a predicament. They are usually adept at getting into and out of things.

Skunks on the other hand...are famous for getting their heads stuck in cans, jars, etc....

Good job getting him freed.
 

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I saw a possum walking down the middle of a road once with a gallon milk jug on his head. That coon situation, it almost looks like some cooking oil poured around the lid, and then a well-placed kick (to the can) wearing a boot from the rear would have fixed it, and probably taught it a lesson.
 
Be careful....Racoons are all fun and cute and cuddly until a family of them takes up residence in your attic and you have to spend a ton of money cleaning up behind them by removing their crap, replacing your insulation, maybe wiring...they can be as destructive, carry fleas and ticks, and can be rabid.

I don't hate them...but they aren't good around a house.
 
Obviously, you've never had pet coons.

They are smart, playful, lovable and just fun to have around.
You had better luck than on of my exes. The good idea fairy told her it would be cool to have a baby coon. It was cute and everything when it was a baby, but that didn't last long. It got big and incredibly destructive quick. The only worse pet I ever experienced was when the same good idea fairy told me it would be cool to buy a monkey from the bazaar in afg. Worst. Pet. Ever.
 
The only worse pet I ever experienced was when the same good idea fairy told me it would be cool to buy a monkey from the bazaar in afg. Worst. Pet. Ever.

Back in the '50s my father thought he got a "good deal" on a spider monkey. He named it Earl. He let it roam the house when anyone was there and locked it in a cage when the place was empty. Earl learned quickly how to jimmy locks and wrecked the place one day. All the cabinets and drawers were opened and their contents destroyed plus feces and urine everywhere.
Luckily, I've never had a "deal" that good.
 
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