We had a (so we thought) raccoon come and dig and tear-up the wood logs we had used to edge the beds with. The logs had started to rot--and had a fine meal of grubs, beetles, and blue racer eggs in them. What a mess! I was going to replace the hardwood logs with cedar (takes MUCH longer for them to rot), anyway--so that did not bother me too much except that that ended my procrastination. The thing that really P__ed me was that the raccoon tore up our little garden pool---and ate all my long-finned KOI!!
I put a trap out baited with cat food. The next morning---YEP!---a raccoon. I took it about four miles down the road to my son's land. The land is four acres surrounded by at least 500 acres of fields, forest, and woods with two streams and a large pond.
We put everything to right---and replaced the Koi with an inferior, but much more affordable, set of goldfish. They were fine until the same time the next year when we had a repeat performance of the previous year. The remaining hardwood logs were torn up---and the goldfish gone. It was then that we learned that seldom do you find a lone raccoon. They travel in packs---family units of two to 4 or more. Soooo---lesson learned. All of them (two more) were caught and placed on my son's land. They all must have been happy there because none have returned. They are opportunistic foragers. When they find a place they like---that has all that they need---that's home.
Hopefully, we will not see them again. It has been two years and no sign of them here.
