Oh Please Why Won't You Learn?

We have raccoons in our neighbour hood.  Always have.  I would imagine we always will.

Raccoons have that nickname of "trash panda" and our raccoons (the generations of them) live up to that name.  They rifle in our garbage and find food and food scraps that SHOULD NOT BE IN THERE WE HAVE COMPOST BINS FOR A REASON (ahem) and when there are young/small raccoons and the bin has been recently emptied... the raccoons get stuck.

When a young raccoon is away from its mother/family, it cries.  Scream cries, really.  And it's loud and non stop.  I'm sure I've talked about this before.

I think we have two (at least) families of raccoons around this year and the babies are particularly vocal.  Very screamy.  And they keep getting stuck in the bin.  

My neighbour found a board that would allow raccoons to use it to climb out of an empty or nearly empty bin and she put it near our back door with a sign explaining what it was for (and asking if folks could try to keep the bin lid down... even though we have non residents to come by to dig through the trash and leav it open, any little bit helps, really.)

So after game seven of the World Series on Saturday I heard that all too familiar and all too loud screaming sound coming from the garbage bins.  Sigh.  So after waiting an hoping they were just lost, I went out to check if one was indeed stuck in the garbage bin but no, it was too tiny little adorable raccoons stuck and terrified in the bottom of the bin.  Sigh.

I opened both lids.  Tried to sound friendly and reassuring (I don't know if it helped).  I dragged the ramp out from inside and positioned it in the bin, stepped back and waited.

About 5 or 10 minutes later, one of the babies escaped, YAY!

I double checked... still the second one in there.  Frozen in fear.  Shoved up against the far end, not moving, not making a sound.  Like I said literally frozen in fear.  "Flight/fright/freeze/fawn" in action.  

I waited.  It started to rain.  I needed to pee.  I went inside, did what needed done (including grabbing a rain jacket) and went back out.  I'd hoped that in those few minutes baby two would have escaped but when I went to check it was still in that frozen position against the far wall.  I tried to encourage it to move.  I readjusted the "ramp" so it was closer to the baby.  I kept thinking that every time I poked my head over the edge it just started the "freeze" cycle all over again.  I knew, or felt that this little one was too terrified to use the escape ramp right at its feet.  I thought about the anxiety metaphor playing out in front of me.  (Too terrified to see the thing that would make the situation better literally right in front of you... too scared to move.  It sucks.)

I thought I might have to manually move the little dude but also know that when push comes to shove they fight and bite and scratch and, I don't have a welder's glove casually on hand, you know?

My neighbour had been watching the game at her Dad's but got home about 40 minutes later (after I'd gone out) and she got a rubbermaid bin she'd stored in her trunk (for exactly this reason) and put it in instead of the ramp and still the baby was too frozen.  So... she took the ramp and shoved it down between the baby and the bin wall (it was flattening itself as much as possible, poor thing) and gave it a shove.  The baby reacted to this.  SNARLING AND HISSING AND BITING AND KICKING.  "Fight" in action.  And as often happens with fear and anxiety, the rush of FIGHT FOR MY LIFE kicked in and the raccoon "suddenly" was able to run to the rubbermaid and use it to haul itself up to the edge and escape the bin. 

I felt badly.  That kind of stress isn't good for any creature.  And I know what it's like to be that scared.  And we really had been trying to help.  So we closed up the bin and put all the things away and what I find myself wishing now is that the stress of being stuck and "attacked by human scary monsters"  would be enough to keep those raccoons out of our garbage bin but I also know that a food source is a food source and there is no way that they are going to stop getting food from that bin.  

The slightly better news is that as we throw away more garbage, the bin will get fuller and for a few days or a week they'll be able to get both in and out and the screaming should be less.

And maybe, as my neighbour hopes, once the young ones grow, they'll be able to make their way out of an empty bin like we assume the mother does (not having actually seen whatever's happening in person.) 

So this is, I hope, a temporary thing that we deal with a few months of the year (most every year?) but I still wish it wasn't happening, but I can not control other humans (who leave the bin open) and I can not control animals (who have a solid food source) and I'm glad I have at least one other neighbour (it's often neighbours from other buildings who get annoyed by the noise and try to find some way to help the stuck ones out) who is eager to help (and stop the noise and help the babies).

But yeah, that's how I ended my world series game seven night.  By trying to rescue two young raccoons from a fairly empty giant garbage bin.  Saturday nights, ya'll!  Wild even after all these years!