I knew that if I left them there they would all become statistics so I gathered all three together and put them in the back of my truck. They roamed around the truck bed and made a lot of noise while I desperately tried to figure out what to do. I got on the phone to try to find somebody to take them. I called the city but they told me if they took them that they would put them to sleep because that’s what they do. They gave me the phone numbers of wildlife rescues in the area that might take them. I called the first rescue and was told, ‘Sorry but we are full up. We are not accepting any orphaned baby raccoons’. I called the next rescue and they told me the same thing. And on it went. The wildlife rescues were so full of orphaned baby raccoons that they absolutely could not take any more.
I didn’t want to repeat the same scenario I had with the injured baby rabbit I found in the middle of the road. So ‘what the heck do I do now’ I asked myself in much more colorful language. The advice I received from the rescues that I talked to, not the ones that answered the phone with a recorded message telling me ‘no more raccoons’ but the ones I actually spoke to, suggested placing the baby raccoons in an open cardboard box and leave them overnight near where I found them in the hopes that mom would return and find them, if she was still alive. So I found a couple boxes, placed a towel in the bottom of the boxes, and placed the racoon kids inside. I separated them because one of the little guys was making so much noise and he was all over the other two I felt a break would be better for them.
I took them back to where I found them. You’re probably thinking the same thing that I was thinking: they will escape the box and end up on the road or become nourishment for a bird of prey or a wandering coyote, or fox, or any other animal that eats these babies. But this is what I had to do. I returned to where I found them and placed the baby raccoons back in the woods. I left them and hoped for the best – that mom would return.
I came back the next morning to find out if mom did come back to get them. As I rounded the corner the first thing I saw was a dead baby raccoon in the middle of the road which had obviously been run over by a car. I guessed that they got out of the box. I parked my truck anyway, moved the dead one to the side of the road for some reason, and went over the spot where I left them. As I approached the boxes I could see one of them, then all three of them. They poked their heads up and welcomed my return.
‘You’re still here,’ I said, again but in a much more colorful language. I don’t know why they were still in the boxes because when I got there they had no trouble crawling out of the boxes. They crawled out. I put them back. They crawled out again. I put them back again. I figured that if I left them another night they probably won’t stay in the boxes. I realized I had to increase my efforts to find a place for these guys.
I packed them up and took them back to my place. Luckily I had a very large pet carrier that somebody didn’t want so I put them in there and placed the carrier on my backyard deck. I went to my phone and started calling wildlife rescues. I called rescues from all over the province but got the same response: absolutely no room for any more baby raccoons.
And then it happened. I found a rescue that might be able to take them. They didn’t really have the space for them but might have a way to take them and care for them until they can be returned to the wild. That call took place at 10:30 in the morning. I would now have to wait for them to call me back and confirm. I was ready to leave as soon as I got the call.
I waited. One hour.
I emailed a picture of them huddled in the back of my truck.
Two hours. Three hours.
Okay back to the phone. I phoned everybody else on the list that I hadn’t already called and I got the same results. They all wanted to take them but had absolutely no room.
It was nearing the end of the afternoon, five-thirty to be exact – when my phone rang. It was the wildlife rescue. I answered the phone. ‘You need to get some electrolytes into them right away’, I was instructed. Then I was instructed to ‘feed them some Esbilac’. Okay. Sure. No problem. Wait. What? Feed them? I still didn’t know. ‘You mean you’re going to take them?’ I asked. ‘Yes’, came the confirmation. The relief I felt was tremendous. The rescue agreed to take them in but I needed to get some nourishment into them because they were so young and in need of motherly attention.
I went to the local pet store and got everything I needed. Then I proceeded to feed them, the best I could, with an eyedropper because that was the only way I could get anything into them. I’ve never done anything like that before so it was an experience. It was not easy. One of the little guys accepted the food without any trouble. The other two were more difficult. I got some food into them but it wasn’t enough. On top of that they kept getting out of the box. While I was feeding one, another one was trying to escape from the box. I fed them once more during the night. It went a little better.
Saturday morning. I was getting ready to make the trip. But could I? I haven’t had any real work since the middle of February. I’ve been making ends meet by shoveling snow, cutting grass and doing some small jobs for the last four and half months. I was ready to sell stuff to pay rent. I did the calculations:
Almost every fluid in my old F150 that could leak – was leaking. It was going to be a little risky. But, I hoped that if my truck broke down it would happen on the return trip. I estimated that it would take me about one and half to two hours to get to the rescue. My truck hasn’t been very good on gas so I figured out that I’d need about eighty bucks for gas. I had seventy two dollars. Okay. Close enough. Let’s go.
I loaded up the truck with my three little friends and set off.
Two and a half hours later we arrived. I was so relieved to hand them over to the rescue. They were all weak and were not out of the woods yet because we didn’t know how long they had been abandoned. But now the three little guys, about four weeks old, all male, had another chance.
I made the trip home very slowly. Fortunately, gasoline wasn’t one of the fluids that my truck was leaking so I made it home with about seven bucks left and a sixteenth of a tank of gas. No problem. I was supposed to start a construction job on Friday when I got distracted, so it worked out.
I’m sure that there were a lot – and I mean a lot – of these baby raccoons that weren’t as lucky as the ones I found. There are about 30 wildlife rescues in the province that take in raccoons, and they were all full. I’m sure that there were a lot of heartbroken humans that found themselves in the same situation as mine and couldn’t do a thing about it. Sure, I could’ve just given up and taken them to be euthanized. But that weekend had special meaning: it was Father’s Day on Sunday. Without any children of my own these guys became my adopted kids. Secondly, it was the anniversary of the weekend that I lost my mother.
I wish I could say that my perseverance and determination had something to do with finding a place for them, but it didn’t. It was luck. Just plain luck. Thank you to the wildlife rescue that took in my little friends – and thank you to all the wildlife rescues that work very hard to help all the abandoned and injured beings that come through their doors.
The wildlife rescue business in this province is regulated by the government but funded entirely by donations. Raccoons have always had a bad reputation for being such a nuisance in the neighborhood but I can guarantee you that it was not one of these guys that got into your yard. Why should they be punished for the actions of others? (Heard that before?) Not all raccoons live in somebody’s backyard.
Countless raccoons live in the wild – and they never bother a single human being.
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