Randi Shane was terrified. Alone in the house while her husband was away in Indianapolis for the week at his summer job (Larry is a brass instructor for the defending world championship drum corps, Carolina Crown) she didn’t know what to do. There were noises in the house at night, disturbing sounds that kept her awake. Since the various scratches and squeaks were coming from the attic, she knew it was an animal of some sort, but what kind? It could be squirrels, possums, raccoons. Her mind whirled with visions of rabid creatures viciously mauling her children. Yeah, Randi is more of a city girl. So, what to do? She did what any reasonable suburbanite did: called the local animal trapper.
A wildlife professional came out and assessed the situation. He identified the offending critters as raccoons and assured the family that they could be caught and removed without harming the animals, or the house. Traps were set and, the first night, they caught Dad but the other cages were either empty or overturned by the wily rascals.
Day two yielded another prize: Mom was in the cage, and none too happy about it. A thorough search of the attic yielded a hole through which the masked marauders had gained entry but, unfortunately, no nest. His expertise told the trapper it was there somewhere, but where? With Momma caged but no sign of the babies, the trapper had grim news. If they couldn’t locate the nest, the babies might not survive for long. The next step would be to start tearing out drywall in an effort to find the lonesome little ones.
Once night fell, Randi heard what she described as “chirping” coming from the ceiling. The next morning, she was able to show her trapper where the sound was coming from and back into the attic he went. Sure enough, he located the nest and safely removed three baby raccoons, tinier that his hand and their eye still closed. The four-legged family will be reunited and able to live out a happy life in the safe freedom of a local wildlife preserve. Now the only thing Randi has to fear is the continuing bombardment of raccoon memes on her Facebook page.
Images via Muffet, logantward
