Racoon Trap
RACOON TRAP – May 30, 2024 – Dakota Dunes, South Dakota, USA
After five months of retirement, Randy LaCroix felt restless. He spent his last years at work talking about all the things he planned to do. Other than an occasional round of golf, he did not seem to be crossing anything off his bucket list. He could not even say for sure what was on his list.
Then he remembered how he admired backyard water features. At one point, he had definitely said, “Someday I’m going to have a fountain and pond of my own.” Randy secretly missed the sense of accomplishment and praise from colleagues he used to get at work. A backyard construction project seemed like a perfect way to fill the void and prove to anyone keeping score that he was still strong and capable.
When Randy shared his dreams for a fountain, rock-lined stream, and pond with his wife, Marcela, they were still in concept phase. He wondered about whether his creation should mimic a natural spring or a man-made reflection pool. Marcela said she liked the soothing sound of running water and was happy Randy was keeping his mind busy. They did not discuss where in the backyard a large water feature would fit.
To Randy, the only logical place for the pond and stream was on the side of the yard that did not include the well-established lawn. Marcela used that section to sprinkle flower seeds around. In the spring and summer, clumps of daffodils and tulips popped up. Those were followed by pink dahlias and zinnias interspersed with white and yellow daisies. Marcela left a walking path between them, but nothing very formal. It looked more like a wild meadow than a manicured landscape.
Randy had grander plans in mind for the flower portion of his backyard kingdom. He had always wanted to rent and operate a small backhoe. During a week while Marcela was away visiting her sister, he gave himself a hands-on crash-course in backhoe driving by tearing into the side of the yard. He plowed flowers, moved dirt around, and dug a trench for water pipes. A truckload of rocks arrived and he used them to construct a mound and gently sloping streambed that emptied into a six-foot diameter pond. The new waterway ran parallel to his side fence with the mound near the back fence and pond closer to the house.
Marcela returned home to find the project still in progress. She looked on in semi-shock as Randy rambled excitedly about the gallons per hour capacity of the pump he just installed. He described the koi fish that would swim in the pond and the long grass that would line the sides of the stream.
“It’s good to see you busy,” Marcela concluded. Then she added, “I need to lie down. The trip left me exhausted.”
In another week, Randy had water circulating from a gurgling spring at the top of the mound into his stream. Most of the flat rocks and boulders were in place and he transplanted long grass onto some sections of exposed dirt. His crowning achievement was dumping twelve koi fish into the pond. They varied in length from six to eight inches and Randy gave each one a name based on its coloring and markings.
“When the pond freezes in the winter, they’ll be fine,” he proudly told Marcela. “When the water circulates again in the spring, they start swimming around.”
Randy encouraged her to join him whenever he dropped food pellets into the pond. “You go ahead. That’s you’re thing,” she said in reply.
Randy found koi feeding relaxing and enjoyable, but he did worry about his consistency. Just in case, he purchased an automatic feeder that would take care of his fish without tying him to a strict schedule.
Everything with the dream water feature appeared to work as planned. Randy still had a few rocks to adjust, but the grass and fish were thriving. And then one afternoon, as he was inspecting his stream, he did not see his largest and favorite fish. He looked and counted for fifteen minutes to be sure. There were only eleven swimming in the pond.
“I don’t understand it. Where could it go?” Randy asked Marcela after calling her outside.
“Maybe a bird got it.”
“It would have to be a big bird.”
“We’ve got lots of big birds around.”
Randy looked up at the sky expecting to see a large hawk or eagle swooping down on his house.
The next day, another fish disappeared. Randy heard his neighbor, Karl, mowing his lawn next door. He walked over to share his fish story and get Karl’s impressions. His neighbor contained an ocean of well-meaning advice on any topic. He offered it freely, but as seriously as a highly paid consultant. Karl had been instrumental in the construction of the stream and pond, including the plumbing and electrical connections.
“You’ve got yourself a raccoon,” Karl replied immediately after hearing about the missing koi.
“Not a bird?”
“A raccoon for sure. And you’ve got to catch it before it takes every fish you’ve got.”
Randy spent the afternoon investigating raccoon removal. He could either pay a critter wrangler a few hundred dollars or buy a trap and do it himself. He had the time and catching raccoons sounded like a perfectly interesting activity, so he drove to Lowe’s and bought a $70 metal trap.
“What should I use for bait?” Randy asked the employee helping him.
“I’ve heard cat food works good for racoons.”
Randy stopped at the supermarket for a bag of dry cat food and then giddily demonstrated the 30-inch-long wire trap to Marcela.
“You open the door like this. And then when the raccoon steps on the trap plate, the door snaps closed. But it won’t hurt him because he’ll be at the other end of the trap with the bait.”
“And what happens after you catch one?” Marcela asked.
“I call animal control and they come get it.”
“And what do they do? Kill it?”
“I’m not sure,” Randy answered evasively.
“If you catch anything, you need to take it to a nice place in the woods and let it go.”
“Alright,” Randy answered in a noncommittal way.
He loaded the trap up with cat food and left it near the pond. In the middle of the night, he heard howling and was sure he would wake up to find the trapped, culprit raccoon. When he crept over in the first morning light, he spotted a ball of fur inside the wire mesh. It turned and nastily hissed at him, biting and scratching at the trap’s walls. But it was no raccoon. Randy recognized the long-haired black-and-white cat wearing a collar. It belonged to the Peterson family who lived down the street.
Randy pulled open the trap’s door and the cat sprinted out and disappeared over his fence without a thank you. No raccoon, and to make matters worse, another fish was gone. Randy tried again, hoping this time the Peterson’s cat had learned its lesson and would not interfere.
The next morning, Randy found the trap sprung. Inside, clawing and yowling, was another neighborhood cat. This one was skinny with orange and white fur. Randy released it without receiving any form of gratitude in return.
Over the next week, he caught three more cats and lost four more koi.
“Maybe we don’t live in a good neighborhood for koi ponds,” Marcela said flatly. “It might be too full of birds and raccoons and who knows what other kind of animal.”
Randy talked to Karl who sounded more sympathetic. “Too many cats around here. And of course you’re catching them because you’re using cat food. If you put hay in there, you’d probably catch a horse.”
“Then what do I use? What do racoons eat?”
“You get you some peanut butter and marshmallows. That’s what raccoons go for.”
That evening, Randy slathered marshmallows in peanut butter and put them in the back of his metal trap. The peanut butter oozed all over, coating the wire. Randy woke to find a yappy neighborhood dog named Pugmeister inside with peanut butter decorating its head. The dog was happier to see Randy than any of the cats. He licked the trap’s walls instead of biting them. When Randy opened the trap’s door, Pugmeister licked him with gratitude.
“How in the world did that dog get through my fence?” Randy asked himself. His backyard seemed to be a thoroughfare for neighborhood animals. He drove to Lowe’s again and bought a motion activated wireless camera. He pointed it at his pond and trap hoping to learn more about his own backyard. That night, he set the trap with more peanut butter and marshmallows.
The trap was empty the next morning but another fish was gone from the pond. Randy decided to look through the camera footage to see if it showed any animal activity. When he scrolled through the video file, he could not believe his eyes. An image of his wife appeared. She carried a bucket and net and headed for the pond. She dragged out one of the koi and disappeared with it. Randy had forgotten to tell her about the camera. He watched the clip three times to be sure he saw the right thing. Then he confronted Marcela.
“I don’t think it’s a raccoon taking these fish after all. I didn’t tell you this yet, but yesterday I set up a camera to monitor the backyard. And guess who it caught taking a fish.”
Marcela’s eyes grew wide. “You installed a camera without tell me?”
“You’re the one taking my fish!” Randy cried. “All this time it was you! What did you do with them?”
“I have a friend down the street with a pond. I put them in there.”
“Why would you do that? Give me back my fish!”
“I will when you give me back my flowers?”
“What flowers? What do you mean?”
“I spent years getting the flowers in the yard looking just right. You came along and dug them up without even asking.”
It was Randy’s turn to look surprised. “What does that have to do with my fish?”
“I figured if I took them out of the pond, you’d lose interest. Then maybe it could go back to the way it was. And I wanted to get back at you!”
Randy stood there not sure what he should say or how he should feel. He was mostly embarrassed that he had plowed through his stream project without knowing Marcela’s opinion.
“Why didn’t you say something before now?”
“By the time you showed me, the yard was dug up and it was too late to say anything. And I didn’t want to sound discouraging. I know you’ve been feeling a little lost and you needed a project.”
“So you took the fish and let me think it was the birds and raccoons?”
“It was easy to let you blame the raccoons.”
Randy smirked. “Now what? I’ll admit I’m still figuring out a whole new phase of life and I’ve probably been a little selfish. But I’d still like my fish back.”
“What about my flowers?”
“Maybe there’s a compromise. I probably don’t need such a long stream.”
Randy and Marcela walked outside and inspected the water feature. The more he talked about it, the more Randy liked the idea of shortening the stream and converting half of the area to a flowerbed.
“We could leave the mound and plant all around it. Different kind of flowers in different directions.” Randy stopped and looked at Marcela. “But only if you like the idea. They’re your flowers.”
Marcela smiled appreciatively and said, “I do like it. And maybe the shorter stream can be lined with them.”
“That sounds good too,” Randy replied.
They spent the rest of the night talking about a new backyard plan and making drawings to show where different flowers might go. In the morning, they returned outside for another look at the layout and discovered a ball of fur in the trap Randy left baited with peanut butter.
“I don’t think that’s a cat or dog,” Randy said as he got closer. “I don’t believe it. It’s a little raccoon. We’ve got a raccoon after all!”
“Ah, he looks so tiny and scared,” Marcela said sympathetically. “I don’t think he’s big enough to grab a fish if he tried.”
The raccoon stayed curled in one corner of the trap, its little hands folded together as if pleading for mercy.
“I guess I should call animal control,” Randy said. When he glanced at Marcela, she frowned.
“I thought you agreed to set them loose in the woods.”
“I did?”
“You did if you want your fish back.”
They loaded the trap into their car and drove to a state park with a stream that looked perfect for raccoons. Their captive hurried up a tree the moment Randy opened the trap’s door. On the way home, Marcela asked to stop at Lowe’s for flower seeds. Then she helped carry buckets of water and koi from her friend’s pond to her own backyard. It was a day filled with compromise, and surprisingly one of Randy’s favorite days of his new life.
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