Masked marauders
Glace Bay family’s backyard overrun by raccoons
CHRIS CONNORS CAPE BRETON POST christopher.connors @cbpost.com @capebretonpost
GLACE BAY — Geoff Oliver and his family would love to spend more time lounging on their poolside deck this summer. Unfortunately, a gang of masked marauders has taken over.
For the past few years, Oliver has been dealing with raccoons at his Table Head home, catching and releasing about a dozen of them each year. But this year, it’s worse than ever.
“We can’t sit on our patio at night,” said Oliver, who’s trapped 20 raccoons since July 3. “Last week my wife was out in the evening, just after supper, and her and my daughter were painting rocks on the deck and sure enough an adult raccoon just strolled up on the deck within 10 feet of them. It’s like they own their place, basically. They’re digging up the yard, the garden, the potted plants. Over the years they’ve just been destroying everything that’s on the deck — pool floats, deck chair cushions. We cover our pool with a solar blanket at night and we’ve seen them walking across our solar blanket and on our floats.”
Oliver said some of his neighbours are contributing to the problem by leaving food out for raccoons, feral cats and birds.
“It seems like they eat (at) the neighbours then the come to my pool to play,” he said, adding that the property destruction isn’t the only thing he’s concerned about.
Although many people find them cute (who can resist that round, furry body, distinctive black bandit’s mask, bushy banded tales and human-like front paws?), raccoons host parasites and diseases that can be harmful to people or pets.
According to the Nova Scotia Department of Lands and Forestry, raccoons can carry canine distemper and their feces can also be infested with the eggs of raccoon roundworm, a parasite that can cause severe health problems in humans who accidentally ingest the eggs found in raccoon feces, something Oliver worries about in his backyard where his nine-yearold daughter Maya and her friends play.
So, he’s calling on the Cape Breton Regional Municipality to pass a bylaw that would prohibit people from feeding wild animals, particularly in residential areas.
Dist. 10 Coun. Darren Bruckschwaiger has spoken to Oliver and shares his concerns.
The longtime municipal politician said he’s been receiving more calls about nuisance wildlife than ever.
“I can say that as a councillor that’s been around for a while I’ve never received that many calls before. Rats as well. Rat calls are crazy. I’ve never experienced anything like it,” Bruckschwaiger said.
“There’s a lot of kids, a lot of pets and I’m getting concerned. And if people are actually feeding these animals, they should stop, because I’m told the biggest problem is people feeding these animals. We need them to consider what they’re doing.”
“By feeding them, they’re keeping them in our neighbourhoods and it’s not a good thing because it could be their own kids that are hurt or their own animals.”
Bruckschwaiger said he’s raised the issue with staff. However, he said even if the CBRM ultimately made it illegal to feed wildlife, it would be difficult to enforce. Instead, he wants the provincial government to start a trapping program.
“I personally believe it’s time for them to do some trapping in this area because I’m getting a lot of calls on coyotes and it’s time for them to take on this responsibility — and it’s their responsibility. It’s very dangerous.”
Oliver said he’s also reached out to Glace Bay MLA Geoff MacLellan to see if the province will prevent people from feeding animals.
While he’s asked his neighbours in the past to stop leaving food in their yards, he said: “they don’t want to be agreeable.”
“We’re at the point now where we don’t talk a whole lot and this is the reason for it. Most of the neighbours are thanking me because they don’t want them in their yard — most people don’t want them in their yard. They belong in the woods, they belong in the wild,” he said, adding that the racoons can be extremely bold.
“There’s been times at night this summer and last summer and I’d go out at night because there are raccoons on the patio and they wouldn’t leave as much as I yelled and screamed. We had sirens and horns and it just didn’t faze them at all. It’s just not a nice problem. If they’re in the wild or at Two Rivers Wildlife Park, that’s a great spot for them, but our patio, it’s not.”