Can you shoot it with a pellet gun. If it's a boar? You can get the texas toothpick for your hat, and then toss him in the trash can for pickup.

A raccoon is like a bear, once it discovers food in a trash bin it's almost impossible to stop. You may prevent it from getting into your trash bin with bungy straps or the likes, but the coon will surely find your neighbors. It may be likely some of your neighbors are feeding these creatures either intentionally or unintentionally (dog/cat food). Raccoon are easy to trap. With a live trap, the coon can be relocated -- if not by yourself, then usually the city will send its animal control officer to pick it up once trapped. If using the "coon cuff" or dog proof trap, one does not have to dispatch it with a firearm or airgun. I will not get into the details here, but there are a number of ways to dispatch one in a trap. Then of course you have to dispose of the carcass. Keep in mind these dog proof traps, while relatively specific to raccoons, they will sometimes catch non-target animals, including pets. Bait selection is probably the best way to prevent non-target catches. Corn or marshmallow is probably your best bet. However, aside from securing your trash can lid, I would think that a live trap would be the best solution assuming your city official will pickup and relocate. That is how its most often done in my neighborhood. Simply set the trap and call the city once a catch is made.

OMG. Last week a raccoon discovered our trash can. They hit it again last night. They tore open a trash bag and then the maggots went nuts… so disgusting.

I bought some bin fasteners on Amazon. Should be here tomorrow. Hope they work.

Grandpa would set up a Hotwire. They would learn and leave it alone.

https://instagr.am/p/CsFSHR8MGwo

Coon goes to Dunkin donuts

We have issues with them getting into the trash, so I just went to the local Ace and bought the black rubber bungee cords below, then drilled a small hole big enough for the hooks to go into on the underside of the area the lid sits on and then just hook them in. Tons of claw marks on the lid around the bungee, but they have held strong for about 5 years and keep them out.

Little change in subject, but I recently had a man tell me that if a dog got after a coon, the coon would head for a body of water (pond, lake, creek, etc.) if near by and would jump in to try a make the dog swim after it. Once both were in, the coon would swim up on the dogs head and drowned it. Sounds like a tall tale to me. Anyone ever heard this??

So this happened early this morning:



1) Arlo camera
2) IFTTT to call cell phone and break through DND once Animal movement is triggered by Arlo
3) (Optional) Use Apilio on top of IFTTT to store a temp variable so that one is only notified if movement is triggered 3 times within 5 minutes to prevent false alarms.
4) Weapon and thermal

In three generations we went from hunting coons with dogs to survive the depression ... to having a robot camera wake you up to go shoot a nuisance coon from the back porch using thermal optics.

What a time to be alive!

The future is now!