If a raccoon knocks, don’t answer

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October 16, 2009

By Karen Middleton The News Courier Fri Oct 16, 2009, 02:40 PM CDT

ATHENS — I’m afraid of a lot of things, but a raccoon was never one of them — until last week.

By now, you’ve probably heard or read about the “gang attack” by five raccoons on a 74-year-old Lakeland, Fla., woman.

Reports say the woman is now recovering at home after having been hospitalized for dozens of lacerating bites and scratches she suffered in the attack on her front porch.

Initial reports said that she had already shooed the mother and four adolescent raccoons away from her back door, when a short time later she heard a noise at her front door. When she stepped out on the porch and tried to shoo the raccoon family away once more, they turned on her. She tripped and fell and the local sheriff said the raccoons “enveloped her.”

She might require skin grafts to close her wounds. Like a lot of folks, I always thought raccoons were just the cutest things — how they look like they’re wearing little Lone Ranger masks, how they sit on their haunches and handle food with hand-like claws. They were almost like small hairy people.

But little did I know that they could even act like people!

They were almost clannish in the way they went about the attack. It was like the four-legged version of “If Mama ain’t happy, nobody is happy.”

While the woman was subjected to a series of rabies shots, authorities say they doubt the raccoons are rabid. But no one in Polk County, Fla., had ever heard of a raccoon gang attack.

An all points bulletin has gone out for the renegade animals and authorities are telling people to be on the lookout.

I read one blog site where several of the bloggers took the raccoons’ side, saying the woman must have done something to provoke the critters. But one man, a former Scout leader said he knows firsthand the results of raccoons turning to the dark side of the force. He told a harrowing tale of being stalked by raccoons when he took his troop to camp in Washington State.

It seems the Scouts followed the manual and tied their foodstuffs high in a tree out of the reach of animals. When the frustrated raccoons couldn’t get at the food they went for the Scouts. He tells of bringing home several “traumatized” youngsters from their outing.

So the evidence is mounting. Raccoons are not just bothersome creatures that tip over trashcans and strew garbage. Some of them have sinister motives. Consequently, I’m beginning to be wary of all furry creatures.

The other day a squirrel came up on my deck and was digging in a plant jar to bury a hickory nut. I rapped on the window to try to scare him away because he was digging up the roots of my plant.

The squirrel didn’t flinch. He actually had the gall to stand up on his haunches and lip off at me for interrupting him.

I decided against going out on the deck and confronting him.

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Karen Middleton

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