I love The Walrus. It’s one of the best magazines out there, dealing with important, timely issues with good writing and, often, a sense of humour. The other day I was reading their piece on the increasing intersection of humans and wild animals, “There Goes the Neighbourhood” by Drew Nelles. The article focuses on coyotes but mentions several other species that have found opportunity in our human-built environments.
One frequent cohabitant, for Canadians at least, is the raccoon. The raccoon presence is so prevalent (and so annoying) that Toronto mayor John Tory announced last April that, “We have left no stone unturned in our fight against Raccoon Nation.” At the time he was announcing a…drumroll please…a new compost bin design. Tory went on to say that, “Defeat is not an option.”
Really? That’s what Toronto’s tough stance against Raccoon Nation amounts to? A new compost bin? I think there are a few more steps we humans can take when animals cause destruction to property and multiply seemingly without limit (because of an absence of predators and plethora of food sources). You can probably tell where I’m going with this - yes, I do think killing animals is, at times, a legitimate solution. But I believe strongly that there are a whole lot of steps in between we have a responsibility to take first.
The main reason that we have raccoon/squirrel/skunk/coyote problems is us. We provided a constantly replenished food source for each species. Whether it’s our garbage, our compost, or our pets, we have created a bounty that has allowed different species’ populations to soar. At the same time, human development has eliminated the habitat for less adaptive species, removing the limiting factors of competition and predation for all of the varieties that have flourished.
Fixing the problem, therefore lies with us.
Sure, animal proof compost and garbage bins are a starting point, but our local governments also need to tackle people who leave food out for pets. Start with education campaigns and then start fining people who are essential baiting animals into coming into residential areas. Charge by-law officers with the responsibility to inspect around homes where sightings have occurred. Fine the people who are leaving food around. As for the fools who are actually feeding them, make them feel some financial pain because, ultimately, they are causing others property damage and other losses.
Next, it’s time to take a look at pets. Aside from wreaking havoc looking for food scraps and garbage, this is the most common point of conflict between the wild animal world and humans. It can range from skunk spraying to coyote attacks. As a kid I once took our family poodle out and he almost got into a scrape with a very large raccoon (who likely would have ripped his cute little face off). We were in a local wooded park, more raccoon territory than human/pet, and I took the dog off the leash. Minutes later he was in a face-off with the fierce beast. Little me didn’t know what to do so I threw sticks at both of them to separate them and then grabbed the dog. Even I had the sense to be afraid for the raccoon even the Pierre the poodle did not; I had no plans to get anywhere near him. Really though, my foolish experience is indicative of the answer: pets stay on leashes in those situations where we bring them into a habitat belonging to wild animals.
Then there are the coyote attacks. If you like those silly little dogs that look like tiny appetisers for large predators, you know what, keep them inside or keep them with you. If you live in an area that has known predator presence, you are the one being irresponsible and endangering the life of your precious living stuffed animal by letting it run around anywhere unleashed. It’s like being mad that someone eats the dessert before it’s served when it’s just sitting there on the counter. Your dog is the dessert.
If your little pet gets eaten, yes, it’s sad, but it’s not the fault of the coyote. And that should be the response of wildlife officers in any area where the devouring happens. ‘We’re sorry for your loss, but next time please don’t be so careless.’
If as a community we have educated people about their responsibilities in these human/animal conflict zones and penalised those who continue to be irresponsible, the next step we have to accept in dealing with ‘Raccoon Nation’ is trapping-permanent removal and, ultimately, killing animals. As noted, we have removed or made survival impossible for all the predators of animals like squirrels and raccoons. They either died or had to relocate because they couldn’t adapt to human environments.
I’m not an advocate for hunting or killing anything. In fact, years ago when I lived in Toronto, we had some really destructive squirrels who seemed to, out of spite, eat all the flower heads from our neighbour’s garden. At our house, they chewed through the wood of our porch multiple times to make nests. Patching was useless and they just kept coming. I called the city and was told my only option was to call in someone to catch the squirrels. S/he would then relocate them because killing the squirrels was not allowed. Hello, these guys aren’t Cecil the lion. Within a hundred metres of our house, there were probably two dozen squirrels. They weren’t endangered, and they regularly caused damage to people’s homes. When I asked the wildlife specialist what would happen once the squirrels were relocated, he said they would likely come back or do the same thing in someone else’s house.
The fact is their population (and that of raccoons) was dependent on the human environment. If their numbers were reduced, they wouldn’t have to raid garbage cans, bird feeders, and compost bins. They wouldn’t strip people’s gardens bare because the local environment would be enough to support them. So if the steps above that involve changing human behaviour don’t reduce that population, we may have to resort to a more permanent ‘removal.’ Humans themselves used to be one of the primary predators for squirrels. As Mike Sula shows us in the Chicago Reader, up until the mid twentieth century, North American regularly ate squirrel. It might be time to start dining on squirrels in our fancy head to tail locally sourced food bistros.
Back in the day with those accursed squirrels eating our porch, I couldn’t do it. Oh, I thought about it, but I couldn’t bring myself to actually kill them - too much guilt. Today, I would feel like it was the right thing to do. If I ate meat, I wouldn’t feel guilty about eating squirrel either. Cows are just as cute as squirrels and a lot less annoying.
As Drew Nelles discovered in the Walrus article, wild animals populations that are not dependent on human food sources are generally healthier than those that don’t. If the numbers fall, we’ll be left with healthier populations that don’t depend on humans for their food sources. And we won’t wake up to the devastation of our backyards by the invading hordes of Raccoon Nation.
Clearly killing any of the animals nibbling away at the edges of what we consider ‘our’ territory has to be a last resort. Making it difficult for them to nibble at those edges should be our first priority, but to paraphrase John Tory, there are a few more ‘stones left to turn’ in the fight against Raccoon Nation.
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