This is all by way of explanation of that scream that you no doubt heard down by Gasworks, up by Greenlake, over by Aurora and across I-5.
It was, we realized post-bellow, a raccoon, just checking out the naked person in the big stew pot. As the mental image of an angry, wet raccoon sharing the suddenly churning tub with us presented itself, we insisted, as forcefully as we could, that he should leave immediately.
This all should not have been as shocking as it was. We have often watched a family of raccoons lumbering their way over our back fence, across the yard and towards the street. In fact, we went through a brief spell convinced our cat had become messy in his old age: we kept finding his water dish upended and muddy. It was several weeks before we realized our feline had been framed: we surprised a raccoon pushing its way through our cat door to wash his food!
Our mention of this was sparked by Ed, who wrote in:
Have you (or anyone else but me) noticed a plethora of raccoons in the hood? I’m seeing more than usual, especially at dusk. Just me and my raccoon radar? Or is something else going on?
It’s a good question. Is the raccoon population on the rise? We see fewer possums (possa?) than we remember we did a decade ago. Does anybody track urban wildlife populations?
Not that we mind, by the way. They don’t seem to be causing any harm (and they’ve steered clear of our bee hives, to the benefit of all concerned). West Seattle, by way of comparison, has regular coyote sightings and apparently there’s a bear lumbering around Shoreline.
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I’d be willing to bet our raccoon friends are tempted by the new, overwhelming stinky-yet-appealing-to-rodent mix of smells emanating from our food/yard waste cans.
Raccoons are winning by way of being viscious little buggers. We had a possum living under our deck for a while. We had a few moments face to face with him when we’d get into our hot tub. One morning we went out and found the possum’s head perched on a concrete wall, appearing very much like a warning to others.
Raccoons also killed 2 of our full grown chickens a couple years back. One of them was running free in the yard so there were all these puffs of feathers, plus some blood smeared on the back door when the chicken tried to alert us. The other chicken was name Eye Pecker- we weren’t so sad to see her get nabbed.
In the end we added an electric fence. No more raccoons since then…
They leave poop on the roof. Yuck. Nasty neighbors.
We’ve lived in Wallingford since 1985, and raccoons have surely been around since then. One day — middle of the day — we had a family of four up in our trees. Another time we pulled into the driveway — again, in the middle of the day — and had a stare down with a big raccoon. Maybe they are on the rise, but they are surely not new to the ‘hood.
We woke up one night a few years ago to find 3 raccoons feasting on our dog’s food in the basement. They were breaking into our house via the cat door while we were gone on vacation. Once the dog was back from his stay at a friend’s house, he was able to scare them away when they attempted to break in again and they stopped coming inside the house. We think it was at least 3 days that they had a gourmet dinner of kibble.
We haven’t had any issues since, but they are definitely brave little critters in this neighborhood.
Probably a little subjective – with more sunlight we’re all more active into the evenings around dusk, so we tend to spot them more, while possums are more nocturnal. With more chickens, urban gardens, and the increased food waste composting the last year or so, we might have an uptick in the raccoon population.
My favorite ‘coon encounter was last fall while sitting at my kitchen table looking out at my grape arbor. There sat one big masked guy — munching on the grapes. With a look that said, “hey … thanks, these are pretty good…smack.” I went outside and yelled and waved — he didn’t budge. Picked up a broom and beat at the arbor and he finally lumbered off. But …. sheesh….the look of entitlement!
I see coons regularly in my backyard, at least once a week
Saw one lumber by the bus stop earlier this week—not used to seeing them midday like that.
And they’re totally huge around here. I’m from Austin, and they say everything is bigger in Texas — but not the raccoons, man!
They’ve been here forever, but it’s only recently that I’ve seen them in the middle of the day. So much for nocturnal!
We’ve lived in Wallingford since 2001, between 45th & 50th on 2nd Ave NE, and have always had a “family” of ‘coons living under our front porch. Though our basement bedroom is right next to their lair, we’ve only actually heard them a couple of times. We see them occasionally – hard to miss ’em, they are nearly as large as our 25lb dogs – lumbering through our back yard or down the driveway and across the street, no doubt out “hunting” for a pot of hot-tub-stewed humanity…