Critters bring forth a habitat of non-humanity

There’s an adage that’s been making the rounds in suburbia for the better part of 60 years, and it goes like this:

“Well, what do you expect? We’re in their habitat.”

It’s something you hear every time somebody has an encounter with a skunk, or a possum, or a raccoon or snake or bobcat in their backyard, encounters that seem to be happening more frequently than ever before.

As always, there’s an element of truth here, and there’s also a good amount of “false narrative that has been repeated so often, we’ll just go ahead and accept it as the gospel.”

Specifically, when people say “we’re in their habitat,” what they’re usually thinking is this: “Poor old Mr. Coyote was sitting out here on this once-pristine patch of land, minding his own business, when these greedy developers came along and put houses right in his back yard. So what do you expect? Of course he’s going to eat their kittens. They had it coming!”

Here’s the problem with that: These critters, believe it or not, don’t spend their entire lives in the same little den where they were born. They’re roamers (often with incredibly huge territories) and they’re hunters. That means, they go wherever the food is.

Thus, when people buy new houses on the edge of rural areas and start bringing tasty little critters like rabbits and cats with them, along with the food and snacks humans often leave outside, guess what — that’s going to attract these varmints to visit places they never had any reason to visit before.

So, yeah, while we’re in their habitat, it might be equally truthful for us to note they are also in ours — because we more or less invited them in.

I bring this up because it’s been quite a week for critters and wild encounters and unwelcome backyard visitors, both here at the Family Compound and throughout our circle of friends.

First, the raccoon. If you don’t see its face on wanted posters shortly, I’ll be surprised.

We live in the country in a house that’s been here for more than 100 years. We’ve got outdoor cats. A half-dozen, in fact. Most of them found us, not the other way around. But we’ve had them all spayed and neutered, and we feed them daily. In return, they do a remarkably good job of keeping our patch of land free of rodents and, thus, snakes.

Only one problem: A raccoon has figured out where the cat food is.

I don’t just mean their bowls. I mean in the supposedly critter-proof container, which is stored next to our greenhouse in a structure we like to call “The Cat Shack.” We keep the cat food inside a Gamma Vittle Vault Plus container — a theoretically secure vault that has a screw-on top, something complex enough to prevent your normal every-day critter from getting into the food. I mean, it takes two human hands to open it, and a couple of complete 360-degree turns to remove the lid; that should keep the contents safe from any other life form, right?

Except, raccoons aren’t normal. They are really, really smart.

One raccoon, believe it or not, has actually figured out the old “lefty loosy, righty tighty” combination and has taken to unscrewing the lid of that cat food container, thus guaranteeing himself a huge, tasty meal. And once they find a place that offers a tasty meal, they keep coming back.

So we started storing the cat food inside of the greenhouse instead of The Cat Shack. Only one problem: There was a window slightly ajar, a good 8 feet off the ground. Naturally, the raccoon figured out how to climb up through the window and get into the greenhouse. Apparently, though, something spooked him — so he got out in a hurry by busting through a greenhouse window.

So now Rocky Raccoon has not only eaten an unhealthy dose of cat food, he’s busted one of my wife’s highly beloved greenhouse windows. If the raccoon is lucky, my wife will settle for a wanted poster.

That’s our little tale of critter woe. Just as my wife told me about the greenhouse window, I was looking at other, even-worse tales of backyard critter encounters on Facebook. (It was probably a night where my TV wasn’t working, but enough about last week’s column.)

A friend of mine on the North Coast was celebrating her 27th wedding anniversary with her husband when they decided to let their dog out at the stroke of midnight. Unfortunately, the dog happened to cross paths with a skunk and decided it would be a good idea to chase the skunk. The skunk, in turn, did what skunks do.

So, my friend and her husband spent the early morning hours of their 27th wedding anniversary washing the skunk smell off their dog. THAT, my friends, is love.

Just as I was counting my blessings on that one, I saw another post from a friend who lives in the hills above the west shore of Lake Tahoe. It was a picture of a bear, in a tree, just a couple of feet from his elevated back door and balcony. He sees bears fairly often — fortunately, usually not quite that close. This one was big, literally within “reach out and touch someone” distance.

And the next thing I read was about a mountain lion that’s been prowling the streets of Paskenta for the past several months. In broad daylight, even.

The next day, mid-afternoon, our neighbor reported seeing a bobcat behind his house — again, in the middle of the day.

All of these people have been in their respective homes for a long time. The critters? Not so much, at least not so visibly. Are they truly moving in on us? Have fires in the mountains driven more of them to our backdoors?

And where will it end? So far, I’ve never seen a bear (or any cat bigger than, well, a cat) around our home, although there are certainly a few bears within a few miles of all of us. So I’m left hoping that bears and mountain lions alike never figure out how to get into our cat food, and I hope our dogs never decide it would be a good idea to chase a skunk. I guess we’re lucky that way.

I just wish that darned raccoon was polite enough to screw the lid back on the container after he’s finished. After all, the container is in his habitat.