Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Rabid raccoon

Walked outside a while ago to wash some deck chairs and lo and behold an obviously rabid raccoon was standing in yard all bowed up and staggering. Like a good citizen I called 911 to call animal control....their off today...ok....can I shoot it? NOOOOO
well send the cops....20minutes later 2 showed up and walked around....told me to shoot it if it came back and came towards me.....wow....what advice....guess I'll go load up the 20 gauge and leave it at the door......

I know.....SSS....got crazy lady across the street would have gone nuts if I hadn't called cops first......

Same thing happened here only Nebraska Game and Parks employee said shoot it. I did and told them where we buried it. Hopefully they handled it from there.

I understand your concern about the lady across the street, but wouldn't a dead, rabid racoon have exonerated you?

Due to your timidity that threat is still out there. Maybe the next time it shows up it will infect a child or a pet?

it's becoming a cultural thing. a ton of rabies infected raccoons in ne georgia. folks down in florida openly feed them and they come out in daylight demanding food.

i've always believed if there were animals about at night they were looking and scavenging for food. during the day, they're suspect of serious medical issues.

coons walking around in the daylight is a bad sign of things to come. noone wants to take rabies anti-serum. and it's not cheap either.

You're county health dept. (likely state lab) will want to test it to confirm rabies.

When you shoot it, please don't shoot it in the head. That make testing orders of magnitude more difficult.

Wear gloves. Put it in doubled plastic bags. Put gloves in second bag. Call your PD or health dept.

Sweet Jesus, I can't fathom not shooting it. WTF have men become.

Didn't the Beatles have a song about him?

Well steelhead and gunreader, since when I first saw it all I had on was fllip flops and shorts, I had no way to just shoot it. Maybe you live where you can just go bang all you want, but I don't ...now that there is a record if I see it again I will shoot it for you.

I keep one of those 1000 FPS air guns loaded around the house for any animal that is about to be a nuisance. May not kill whatever I'm shooting at but I figure a head shot will slow it down. So far I've only used it on an injured squirrel but there is a raccoon that comes out around 8:30ish in the evening when it rains.

I doubt anyone would notice a .22 short though.

One day before I went off to work my two terriers grabbed a rather large coon in the back yard. The big one had the coon by its throat and the other by the rear thigh. I pried both of them off the coon, really thought I was going to get bit either by the dogs or the fing racoon. Discharging a weapon is illegal within city limits. The coon staggered off and I cleaned up both dogs who were covered in Coon Blood . I called the Cops, they got there 15 minutes later and one told me that there is no way they tangled with a racoon. It would have killed those little dogs. I told him , you don't understand they were on top. I then called my Vet to have one dog checked out that had a bite on his shoulder, both dogs got rabie boosters that day.

I went to work for a while and then came home n to take the dogs to the vet, I happened to look on the other side of the fence and there was the coon sitting at the base of an oak tree, looking completely out of it. I called the cops again, 45 minutes later they showed up and one took an AR out of the trunk of his cruiser, I led him to the fence and he said he could not get a shot off without it richocheting. He said he was not about to go near the coon because it might charge him. WTF, he told me they used to carry 22LRs for this purpose, I told him he could borrow my 22 rifle and he agreed. He Killed it , animal control picked it up and sent the head to Raleigh to be examined, it came back negative for Rabies.

In retrospect I should have just gone to the garage , grabbed a shovel and killed the SOB when the dogs had him in a death grip .


My new next door neighbors(just moved in from Florida) are feeding a racoon, I have a pellet gun ready for it if it comes into our yard. Fgold I was dealing with the Kville police FWIW

[quote=GunReader

I understand your concern about the lady across the street, but wouldn't a dead, rabid racoon have exonerated you?

Due to your timidity that threat is still out there. Maybe the next time it shows up it will infect a child or a pet?

[/quote]

In a rational world of common sense adults, yes.

In this irrational drama driven society we live in now, I am not so sure.

I swear on Gideons Bible!

Nope, a .22 short is pretty quiet, but even so, I've ordered a can to make it even quieter... 8 month wait!

If you think about that, it's stupid ridiculous to have to wait that long.





.

I had a similar experience at my first house- I lived in town and had a raccoon in my yard acting strangely. I shot it with a 22 but someone called the police regarding "shots fired" in the area. The cops knew me well as I was on the local volunteer fire department and had worked part time as an officer for 5 years and I was their first stop. I told them what happened, gave them the carcass, and received a short lecture about shooting in town. The animal was clear of rabies but had signs of significant trauma such as being hit by a car.

I now live in the country and rid myself of a good dozen coons a year. If the dogs don't rustle one up then the dog proof traps around the chicken coop take their share. I have two down this week plus one of the skunks that have moved under a shed. This last one is a real bugger, he dug a new exit to avoid the box trap I set for him. I might have to go with leg holds at his exits and hope it doesn't dig a new exit. I would put a can of cat food out in the driveway and shoot le Pue when he came out but that would mean staying up all night waiting and I have too many things going on to do that.

Man that brings back a memory for me. My grandparents were farmers and between spring and fall my dad, mom and younger brother spent most weekends there. I was 7 or 8 years old and my brother was 4 years younger. We were playing out in the yard after supper and a rabid coon came staggering towards us. My brother wanted to pet it and even though I had no idea what rabies was I knew by instinct something wasn't right.

I grabbed my brother and took him up on the porch and yelled in the house that there was a coon in the backyard that walked right up to us. I remember my grandpa jumped up flew out the door and grabbed a fire brick off the porch. He walked up to the coon and threw that brick on his head killing him graveyard dead. He then grabbed a pair of gloves, picked up the coon and threw it on the cob pile which he then doused with diesel fuel and lit on fire. I remember at the time it was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen. Thanks for the memory!

Mike

I had a little grey fox flopping around in the road in front of the house having seizures and drooling. It took me all of 2 microseconds to decide to get a rifle. I shot it on the neighbors property and he came out while I was digging the hole. I wouldn't have cared a bit did he call the cops. That's a situation that presents a pretty clear and unequivocal threat and just needs to be handled right now.

It doesn't matter, men have a duty, period. What the fugg kind of society is it when someone has to call animal control, cops, Justice League.


It blows my mind that you need the ok from the KING before you will do anything. It's easy to see why this country is so fugged from this thread.

Sheep, Sweet Jesus

In a rational world of common sense adults, yes.

In this irrational drama driven society we live in now, I am not so sure.[/quote]


Right is right. It's amazing how many of you consider this OK.


Yeah, a fight is coming always gets me laughing, especially after threads like this.

one of the few times I into the woods with out a gun, was on the back part of our 60, heard a growl, and there was a big coon, middle of the day, he was acting funny, and come at me I hit him with a stick, and be lined for the cabin, came back with a 22 rifle, but never saw him after that. I told a Deputy I knew and he said there had been a few rabid skunks in the area!