Raccoon Island: Vashon struggles with its cute but pesky neighbors
One sunny afternoon last fall Islander Martin
Halliwell was pruning trees at a rental home near Tramp Harbor when he
sat down for a lunch break. He had barely begun to eat when he turned to
find eight little faces, just feet away, staring curiously at him.
One sunny afternoon last fall Islander Martin
Halliwell was pruning trees at a rental home near Tramp Harbor when he
sat down for a lunch break. He had barely begun to eat when he turned to
find eight little faces, just feet away, staring curiously at him.
“They’re almost as cute as baby pigs,” he said with a laugh.
Since then Halliwell, who often works outside on Vashon, has seen even larger groups of raccoons.
“I’ve seen as many as 15 or 16 together,” he said. “It’s bizarre.”
Wildlife experts say that raccoons, intelligent and
highly adaptable scavengers, are found in large numbers all around the
Seattle area and aren’t necessarily more abundant on Vashon. But while
the cute and pesky creatures knock over trash cans and pick fights with
dogs in the city, on Vashon raccoons — who frequently raid gardens and
massacre flocks of chickens — seem to have earned a special place of
wonder, amusement and disdain among Islanders.
“If you’re ever lacking something to talk about on
Vashon, just bring up chickens or raccoons,” said Will Forrester, who
owns GreenMan Farm with his wife Jasper. “Everyone loves to one-up each
other on raccoon stories.”
Indeed, the stories abound. From the disgruntled
farmer who has killed more than 100 raccoons to the naïve neighbor who
feeds 20 of them a day to the woman who arrived home from vacation to
find raccoons had ransacked her home and killed her cats, raccoon
shenanigans are endless.
Even those with seemingly nothing to attract
raccoons have found themselves victim to the animals’ antics. Lesley
Reed, like many Islanders, has been woken during the night by footsteps
and thumps on the roof of her north-end home. And when her husband threw
water and rocks on the raccoon invaders, she said, it seemed to barely
phase them.
“They would look at us, and they just didn’t really care at all,” she said.
Most, however, will agree that the Island’s chicken owners seem to suffer the brunt of the raccoon mischief.
Forrester is one of many who have learned the hard
way. After losing a number of chickens to hungry raccoons — he found
they could even dig under a fence and unravel chicken wire — he and his
wife built an extra-fortified pen complete with electric wire at the top
and bottom.
“We call it Guanotanamo Bay because of all the chicken (poop) inside,” Forrester said. “It’s secure like a prison.”
Bob Norton, a local fruit expert who has a small orchard on Maury Island, said raccoons can’t stay away from his fruit either.
“They’ll strip a plum tree or a fruit tree totally
overnight,” he said. “You’re just about ready to pick, and the next day
you go out to pick and they’re all gone.”
Unable to build a pen around his trees, Norton has resorted to trapping and killing some of the most troublesome raccoons.
“I don’t enjoy killing anything, but I’ve got a lot
of money invested in this little farm, and I can’t give it all to the
raccoons,” he said.
Norton said killing raccoons seems to be a common
practice on Vashon, as he knows many farmers who have trapped even more
than he has. Some have buried 30, 50, even 100, he said.
“They’re just trying to protect their fruit and their gardens,” he said.
Chris Anderson, a biologist with the state
Department of Fish and Wildlife, said trapping and killing nuisance
raccoons on one’s own property is legal, as is hiring a certified
wildlife control officer to do so. However, he said, the state
recommends those with raccoon problems try other methods to deter the
animals first, such as securing trash cans, removing outside pet food
and scaring the raccoons off when they do come around.
“If you get rid of one, another will probably come
back,” Anderson said. “So we recommend people work on exclusionary
measures and hazing to make the raccoons unwelcome.”
A rumor has long circulated the Island that King
County has trapped raccoons in other parts of the county and released
them on Vashon.
However, Tim O’Leary, a spokesperson for the
county, said that has never happened. The county, he said, simply
doesn’t handle nuisance wildlife.
“It’s not really our thing at all,” he said.
Anderson, with the state, said it is actually
illegal to relocate problem animals such as raccoons from one property
to another, a practice that has happened on the Island.
Multiple academic studies have found that raccoons
that are relocated usually repeat the same troublesome activities in a
new location, Anderson said.
“They’ll find the same situation and go back at it, and cause a problem for someone else,” he said.
However, particularly troublesome to state wildlife
officials, Anderson said, is the surprisingly common practice of
feeding raccoons. Though it’s not against state law, feeding raccoons is
bad for both the animals and people, Anderson said.
Raccoons that gather near homes to feed are known
to more easily spread diseases. What’s more, Anderson said, raccoons fed
by humans become less afraid of homes and people and will likely cause
problems for other neighbors.
“It’s creating a situation where wild animals might
lose their wildness,” he said. “It may end in the animal having to be
trapped and killed. If we love the raccoons, we don’t want to do that.”
Islander Bella Ormseth knows this better than
anyone. A neighbor on one side of her home near Camp Sealth feeds
raccoons, she said, while a neighbor on the other side shoots them.
“I’m like Switzerland — I’m in the neutral territory,” Ormseth said with a laugh.
Nell Coffman, a veterinarian at Fair Isle Animal
Clinic, said she believes many people on Vashon feed raccoons. She’s
heard the stories from those who sell pet food as well as Fair Isle
clients whose neighbors feed them.
“It’s a real sensitive issue,” she said. “They feel
like they’re helping the wildlife, and they name them and feel like
they have a relationship with them.”
Several Islanders who are believed to feed raccoons did not return calls from The Beachcomber.
Coffman said she’s especially concerned about
feeding raccoons because they are known to carry diseases. A few years
ago there was a large outbreak of leptospirosis among Island dogs. It is
unknown if raccoons played a part in the outbreak, but it’s possible
for raccoons to transmit the disease through urine and feces, Coffman
said.
Diseased raccoons have recently been reported not
far from Vashon. Just last week a raccoon caught in the Fauntleroy
neighborhood was found to have distemper, a highly contagious disease
that can be passed to dogs. Last October there was an outbreak of
distemper among raccoons at Point Defiance Park in Tacoma.
Coffman said raccoons can also carry rabies, though
it’s not a problem in this area, and they are known to transmit a type
of roundworm that can cause extreme illness and death in humans.
“There are a fairly low number of cases, but it’s pretty horrific when it does happen,” she said.
At Fair Isle’s request, public health officials
from the state and county level will visit Vashon in May to hold a
public meeting. They’ll give information and answer questions about
leptospirosis, canine vaccinations and living with raccoons.
Islander Gary Gray said he, for one, is interested
in such a public forum on raccoons. After losing at least a dozen
chickens to raccoons and observing a large one come closer and closer to
his home, he is searching for answers on how to deal with the
persistent animals.
“A month ago I came home and one of the raccoons was running down the hill with a chicken in his mouth,” Gray said.
He said he has considered trying to trap the raccoons, but is uncomfortable with the idea of killing them.
“At the same time, when we’ve got so many in the
area that are threatening some of our own animals with diseases and our
own children, it’s something that I’ve considered,” he said.
Bianca Perla, a local ecologist and the director of
Vashon Nature Center, said she wishes no one had to resort to killing
raccoons. At the same time, she said, Vashon’s raccoon population, like
its deer and rat populations, has gotten out of control due to a lack of
predators that would normally kill the animals.
“Personally, … I don’t really like the idea of
shooting an animal,” she said. “If raccoons are really a nuisance animal
it’s hard to know what to do, but I personally don’t like it.”
Perla said perhaps Islanders should do something to discourage those who feed the raccoons and in doing so feed the problem.
“It might be something for us to think about as a
community,” she said. “Do we want to do more education, at least? Do we
want to pass some kind of ordinance?”
Dana Schuerholz, one of the directors of the
farm-based Homestead School, agrees raccoons are a nuisance for anyone
on Vashon with a farm or even a trash can. But she tries to take the
problem in stride, she said, and has even turned it into a learning
opportunity at the small school on Vashon’s west side.
Schuerholz has trapped and killed four or five
raccoons that wouldn’t stay out of her chicken pen, and students at
Homestead helped tan the hides. When they save up enough hides, she
said, they’re going to make coonskin hats.
“I want to have wildlife on the Island, and you
don’t get to pick and choose what kind of wildlife you get, and that’s
OK,” she said. “I think we’ve disturbed the balance, and we kind of have
to live with that.”
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