Fur Trapper

A month or two ago I started finding what resembled dog piles in the back yard. I thought this was very odd since our yard is completely fenced with six foot wood fences so there isn't really any way for a dog to get in except to squeeze under the fence in a few spots. This seemed kind of unlikely since only one of our neighbors has dogs and there is no way those two could get under the fence and there are no openings on that side. The more of the poop I scooped I realized that it was not left by a dog, but some sort of wild critter. There are actually websites that you can go to in order to help identify animal scat. After a little research I decided it must be a raccoon visiting my yard almost nightly. I may never know for sure, but what ever it was the scat piles were as large as the piles our dogs used to make. So I am thinking this is a pretty large raccoon. We have lived her five years and have never had this problem before. From my reading on the internet I learned that raccoons tend to expand their territory during mating season which is in the early part of March. A sister in the ward offered to lend me a trap so I decided to trap the critter.

Because I had to go to Dallas and Lubbock for a week I got a late start on my trapping venture. I set the trap the first time Saturday the 26th. The next morning the trap had a critter. With great anticipation I lifted the tarp I had covered the trap with to find a cat in the trap. This was a black feral domestic cat that I think has been living under our deck for  quite a while. Six months to a year we have seen the thing in our back yard from time to time. I put the trap in the truck and drove out to a remote spot in Alvin and turned it loose. In the words of our wacky Tumwater neighbors Lou and Jerry, I expect it will have a "short but happy life". I just wanted to make sure I would not be playing a game of catch and release every night.

There does not seem to be as much evidence of nightly visitors, but undaunted I re-baited the trap and in a couple of days I had another critter. Again I gingerly lifted the tarp and was again disappointed. Just a large male opossum. I did not release him, not alive anyway. My friend told me the best bait for raccoons was sardines. I had been using cat food. So I bought a can of sardines and re-set the trap in an area where the latest scat deposits were most common.

First night nothing. Second night the trap was sprung, but by another possum. I made the mistake of letting it out of the trap alive and it scurried under a gap in the fence in the back corner of the lot. So I am going to give it one more try. The nightly visits by the critter that was soiling the back yard seem to have ended.  I would like to catch the opossum that got away.  These things are sure ugly!