Paws 'N Claws

What's in this issue:

Clever Critters

Mr. Whiskers — So cute, so lethal

Injured Red-Tail Hawk Dangles Upside-Down From A Tree

Animal Art

ATW Operating Hours to Change April 1

Clever Critters: Baby Raccoons Are Coming!
By Hope Lochridge
 

April and May are the peak season for raccoon babies. Females usually give birth to one litter a year with three to seven kits. Baby raccoons are born without the ability to see until they are about three weeks old. By four weeks they can stand and by six weeks they can walk, run, and climb. Baby raccoons are fully dependent on their mother for food, shelter, and protection. The kits make chirping sounds and other vocalizations like hisses, whistles, screams, growls, and snarls as they mature. Many will stay with their mother for a year. 
 

Raccoon kit with mother.

So, if you have a raccoon in your attic, assume that it is a mother with kits. As an animal lover, I think you have two reasonable options: (1) wait until Fall and then carefully seal up the access point after the family has left or (2) make the area unattractive with lights, sound, and smells—then seal it up (see below for how) once the mother and all the babies have departed.. Mother raccoons often have more than one den, so relocation, if done by her, is not as stressful as if done by humans. She will move one baby at a time, carrying them by the scuff of their necks like a mother dog carries her puppies.

 
Raccoon kits in an attic.

I do not recommend trapping and relocating, even if done by a wildlife professional. Too often, if relocated after trapping, a mother will abandon her babies or the new location will belong to other critters unwilling to share.  All Things Wild (ATW) estimates that 80% of the baby raccoons brought to their facility are injured or orphaned as a result of human interference. In 2020, ATW treated 124 raccoons of various ages. 
 
Don’t want to host raccoons? Then make your home inhospitable:

• Don’t leave food out for raccoons
• Feed pets indoors
• Keep pet food away from pet door
• Close pet door at night
• Securely seal all sources of garbage
• Don’t put food in compost piles, unless pile is secured
• Clean up BBQ pits and picnic tables
• Fill or block holes to your possible den sites under your deck or shed
• Make sure your attic is tightly sealed
• Talk with your neighbors about doing the same
• Check and inspect your home annually

 

Mojang and Cricket, ATW's ambassador raccoons.
 

• Place a bright light by the den entrance, often a loose air vent or hole in the siding.  Make sure the light is fire safe.  
• Turn a radio on to a talk show as loud as you can stand it and place it in the den area.  
• Soak rags in apple cider vinegar or ammonia; put them in a plastic bag; poke holes in the bag to let the smell escape; and hang it next to the den entrance. Coyote or fox urine, purchased at hunting or gun shops, can also be used. I don't recommend moth balls - they are toxic.  
• Leave this for at least three days and three nights. The mama will move one kit at a time to the new den. 
• When you think the creatures have left, stuff the hole with paper.  Sprinkle corn starch around the entrance.  
• Check daily to see if they are truly gone. Then, seal the entrance tightly.

 
If you have captured the babies, but the mother has run off, you can get the mom to come back for her babies.  In the evening, put the babies in a cardboard box on the ground near where the mom was entering the house.  Tuck the flaps of the box in as shown below.  Leave the box all night.  The mom will come during the night, rip the box open to get to her babies, and carry them away.  If she doesn’t take all the babies overnight, contact ATW because the remaining baby (babies) will be getting very dehydrated.
 

 

In closing, with the increased urban density in the central Texas area, raccoons need our help to keep them safe. We need to learn to live safely alongside them and be tolerant of their sometimes pesky habits like turning over the trash can or eating the goldfish in our pond. With common sense, we can co-exist. Call ATW if you find abandoned babies or injured animals at 512-897-0806 – the staff will walk you through what needs to be done.

 
For More Information: 

H. B. Davis. “The Raccoon: A Study in Animal Intelligence.” The American Journal of Psychology, vol. 18, no. 4, 1907, pp. 447–489. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1412576. Accessed 9 Mar. 2021
 
 "Raccoon Facts". PBS Nature. February 7, 2012. Retrieved March 10, 2021.  Fun videos and interesting facts.
 
ATW raccoon video, “Meet Cricket and Mojang,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx-1GPnED-I        
 
About the author:  Hope Lochridge is a volunteer at ATW.

Mr. Whiskers
So cute, so lethal. 

 

As animal lovers, we don’t limit our love to only a few animals.  We love them all:  domestic, barnyard, or wild.  Many of us love our domestic cats.  They are very interesting creatures being lovable and distant at the same time.  According to an article in National Geographic, “In a new comprehensive study of the spread of domesticated cats, DNA analysis suggests that cats lived for thousands of years alongside humans before they were domesticated. During that time, their genes have changed little from those of wildcats, apart from picking up one recent tweak:  the distinctive stripes and dots of the tabby cat.”

Mr. Whiskers, our darling house cat, is a deadly carnivorous hunter, especially going after small wild animals.  Don't you feel special when the precious kitty lays an injured or dead wild bird at your feet?  Do you really?

Domestic cats have a bacterium, called Pasteurella multodica, in their saliva that can kill a small animal in 24 hours.  It is this bacterium that causes cat scratch fever in humans.  If a small animal has been bitten by a cat, it must have antibiotics to survive.  For that reason, you need to get the cat-bitten wild birds and animals to All Things Wild or any wildlife rehabilitator as quickly as possible.
 

If you would like to keep the little wild animals safe from Mr. Whiskers (and what caring soul wouldn’t?), try to keep him in the house especially during wild baby season, April through June.  This is the time when the young fledgling birds are on the ground learning to fly.  You can try a bell on the cat’s collar, but fledgling birds, as well as all young animals, are naïve and fearless.  It’s hard enough for the little wild ones to survive, but cats present an even greater danger.  The best thing you can do is to keep the kitty inside the house.  Please! 

For more information on cats and wildlife CLICK HERE.

Injured Red-Tailed Hawk Dangles
Upside-Down From A Tree
The following story was shared by All Things Wild with EmeraidVet, a division of Lafeber Company, that makes intensive care nutrition for animals.  The story about the dangling hawk, which actually took place in 2019, won the annual EmerAid contest for the best wildlife rehabilitation story submitted in 2020.  ATW received a $50 discount toward our next purchase.
 

The phone rang one evening at our wildlife rehabilitation center. The caller was a young woman who lived in an apartment building on the edge of a bluff overlooking a creek below. From her balcony she could see the tops of the trees along the creek, and dangling upside down from the top of a tree was a red-tailed hawk.
 

The Hawk Rescue Begins
 

Even though it was late in the day, we grabbed our tallest ladder and headed toward the site with the hawk.  The rescue was impossible.  The bluff was at least a 50-foot drop, and the hawk was a good 70 feet up in the tree.  Nothing could be done.  We had no choice but to leave the still-alive and dangling hawk in the tree overnight.

The next morning, we notified Animal Control Services. They put us in touch with the local fire department. The chief agreed to meet us at the site. By now, the hawk had been dangling at least 15 hours. The fire department crew arrived and went to work. Ultimately, they had to cut down the tree, rigging it to fall toward the side of the bluff to cushion the hawk as much as possible.
 

A Long Road To Recovery

Once we had the hawk in our possession, we rushed him to our center for X-rays and treatment. Our guess was that he was going after a squirrel, missed, and got a talon caught in the tree. Fortunately, the leg was not broken, but the tissue on the leg was badly damaged. The hawk was in shock from his long, upside-down ordeal.

Hawkins, as we named him, accepted the electrolyte fluids and EmerAid IC Carnivore that we tubed into him until he was stable enough to be fed bits of mice. In the beginning, Hawkins couldn’t put any weight on the leg. As time went by, he began to heal. It was a long process, taking almost five months. Once he was acclimated to the outside in our large raptor enclosure and strongly flying and perching, he was ready to return to the wild.

On a beautiful, sunny morning, with the fire department crew and a crowd of Hawkins’ supporters in attendance, we released the healthy red-tail hawk by the apartment building at the bluff overlooking the creek.

Animal Art
Coming soon!
 

  

Ozzie specializes in preparing two works of art simultaneously!
 
 

Teddy prefers to work on a vertical surface.
 

A fat juicy grape gets Gopher's creative juices flowing.
 
 

Penelope paints best with bits of cheese to motivate her.
 

Pecans make Ozzie a happy artist.
 
Stay tuned for more information on the upcoming raffle.