For more than 35 years, a woman in Washington state would leave some food in her yard for about a dozen resident raccoons.
The key word in that sentence is “dozen.”
Six weeks ago, the number of raccoons began to increase. “Somehow the word got out in raccoon land, and they all showed up to her house expecting a meal,” Kevin McCarty, a spokesperson for the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office, told NBC 9 news.
Wait a minute, the sheriff’s department? How much did this escalate?
A lot. The newer raccoons began scratching around the woman’s house near Poulsbo, Washington, all night demanding food. “Anytime she comes out of her home, they swarm her until she throws them food,” the sheriff’s department said in a statement. “The normal raccoons that she feeds are nice, but the new ones showing up scare her.”
By last Thursday afternoon, the newly scary raccoons had grown to a horde of about 100, prompting the woman, whose name has not been released, to call 911. Her concern was increased by the newer arrivals’ greater aggression after years of dealing with a relatively docile, much smaller band.
Only after sheriff’s deputies arrived last week did the woman feel safe enough to flee the scene in her car, leaving the group of raccoons — a “gaze” is the collective name — behind.
A video shows a multitude of raccoons milling around, interacting with each other, climbing tree stumps: generally looking like an impatient crowd waiting for a Las Vegas buffet to open up. Except for the climbing of tree stumps, maybe.
The sheriff’s department said trappers had been asking a prohibitive $500 per raccoon to cart them away. So the woman was referred to the state’s department of fish and wildlife. Their expert advice was, well, to stop feeding the raccoons.
“The raccoons appear to have started dispersing now that they are no longer being fed, and we are glad for a positive outcome to this case,” Bridget Mire of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife wrote in an email Thursday.
Though “no laws were broken by feeding the raccoons,” the sheriff’s department said, wildlife officials generally agree that feeding wild animals is a bad idea.
“We discourage people from feeding wildlife, as this causes them to lose their natural fear of people, which can lead to aggression,” Mire said. “It also draws animals together, possibly mixing healthy and sick animals and spreading diseases among them. Some wildlife, like raccoons, can carry diseases that may be transmissible to people and pets. Feeding wildlife also may attract predators, such as coyotes and bears.”
Don’t feed the raccoons, folks.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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