Offspringin
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Post by Offspringin on Mar 29, 2016 7:52:06 GMT -8
We just got back from a trip into Florida to a few parks.
Ill preface this by saying we are not "new" to camping. I have been camping for 30+ years starting with my parents. I have done backwoods trekking, campground camping, tent, no tent (under the stars) etc etc.
We have NEVER had an issue with anything getting into our cooler. Cant say that anymore.
Wife woke me up at 6am to tell me something got in the cooler. We had some precooked ground chuck with jalapenos, precooked steak and onions for hoagies and the rest of our camping food in our cooler outside the door of the camper. Raccoon's.... raccoon's came and opened the cooler (that even our 2 year old escape artist cannot manage to open). They took the 2lbs of ground chuck out and shredded the bag but didn't eat much, guess they don't like spicy. They took the bag of steak and onions and ran off with it. Found it on the edge of the campsite shredded and empty. They ripped open some cheese and bit a few other things open. Then ran off leaving our cooler open for everything else to get warm. Probably $20-$25 in damages.
I know, stupid us for leaving the cooler out. I have hiked bear country where you have to put anything with a scent in the bear bag at night. Oddly enough the cooler didn't fit in the tree.....
This is not to say we haven't camped where raccoon's are prevalent before (and one time feral cats). BUT the park warns you at check in our has signs posted. We finally found a sign, on our 3rd day, on the side of the bathhouse. A cute little diddy about how crafty they are, how they can open tents and coolers. This would have been useful information a few says prior.
I want to say lesson learned but it wasn't. Ill do it again. and take a chance.
The raccoon came back later and tried to get in my truck. Sandy raccoon tracks up my tire, up the fender of the truck, onto the hood, onto the drivers mirror and then a perfect paw shaped swipe on the drivers window as if to check if it was open/closed or could be pulled down.
So, as a PSA, if you go to this park, which, by the way is a great park, love the park, would stay there again. Please don't leave your cooler out. With a 100+sites it must be like a buffet for these guys every night.
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pennyg
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Post by pennyg on Mar 29, 2016 9:36:00 GMT -8
HaHa, WE had the same problem in a Florida State Park near Jupiter Fl, Jonathan Dickerson State Park, Raccoons would steal soda cans off our picnic table in broad daylight and drag them into the woods! They almost drank the soda right there at the picnic table
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Offspringin
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Post by Offspringin on Mar 29, 2016 10:12:28 GMT -8
HaHa, WE had the same problem in a Florida State Park near Jupiter Fl, Jonathan Dickerson State Park, Raccoons would steal soda cans off our picnic table in broad daylight and drag them into the woods! They almost drank the soda right there at the picnic table So I went wandering in the woods, bushwhacking if you will. I found ALL sorts of packages. Lots of packs of bacon, lots of ripped up foil, lunch meat packs, styrofoam raw beef packages, frozen beef patties. Its clear these things love meat. We met another couple at the playground from Ohio staying in a tent. They too had a raccoon stick his skinny little arms into their cooler that they even bunged shut and slide their pack of bacon out. We also camped at Manatee Springs on the same trip. I kept the cooler in the truck there as well. First night, arrived late. Ate before setting up the trailer. Had a raccoon just wander through the site like we were not there. Another (or the same) came through later. I was driving up to another parking lot an my headlights came around the corner and landed on a dumpster. 3 of the scattered like big rats. |
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SusieQ
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Post by SusieQ on Mar 29, 2016 13:29:51 GMT -8
I attract the little bandits. I was camping back home in MS where they are a huge problem, Ocean Springs, MS, and we had dinner and got ready to make s'mores and my marshmallows were missing. Everything else was there. They stole them while we were eating.
That night, they got in my bins which I thought were secure with latches. Nope. They went for the graham crackers. And on another trip, I had one under my trailer when I pulled out to leave.
Then I had one in WV that woke me up and was staring me in the face though the screen of my teardrop door window. And we had Hershey bars and potato chips stolen in TX. I was not expecting the little visitors at the campground where we were staying or would have been more careful. Now, I just pretend like there are bears wherever we are and keep everything put away.
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turbodaddy
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Post by turbodaddy on Mar 29, 2016 15:44:20 GMT -8
They are little vandals, messy beyond belief and will eat the most disgusting or delicious things. A few stories:
We used to have them nesting in the crawl space above the ceilings of an old inn in Maine every spring. One time we hired a trapper to come in, and he told us he'd gotten all of them. A while later,I was in the kitchen and heard something overhead, looked up to see the "cutest" (NOT!) little fuzzy babies looking down through a hole they'd made. My sister and I got a ladder and I handed them down to her, I think there were 5 or 6. Just as I was climbing down the ladder a great big nasty and mad Mama appeared in the hole snarling and hissing at me.
What I did next was reprehensible. I took an old galvanized wash tub,filled it with water. I hung a big piece of smelly cheese from the ceiling over the wash tub. Then I split an extension cord and ran one wire to the cheese and the other to the wash tub and plugged it into an outlet. When I thought about what I might have found in the morning (other than the raccoon!) I freaked out and took it all apart. Called trapper again and he finally did get all of them.
Also spent a night in Baxter State Park in Maine, sitting up at the picnic table with a pile of rocks to fend the little buggers off. We could hear them making their way around the campsites knocking over trash cans, opening coolers and fighting with each other all night. No one slept at all.
And lastly, the house we're living in now had been a summer rental for 10 years, located next to a 20 acre wetland. The first night I slept there I was preparing my supper when I had the sensation of being watched(I was alone in the house). I looked to my left at the slider to the deck and found 4 HUGE raccoons standing on their hind legs, paws on the glass looking for a handout...obviously the renters had been feeding them! Finally scared them enough that they stopped coming around.
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Hamlet
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Post by Hamlet on Mar 29, 2016 16:54:40 GMT -8
We found a raccoon building a nest in an ancient apple tree on our property a few weeks back... In plain view of our chickens. We made sure the dog had easy access to the yard, and the raccoon seems to have moved on. Thank heaven. Hamlet's male person is such a softie that he once live trapped a gopher that had eaten trough the roots of three big rose bushes and had disappeared most of the vegetable garden (I caught it in the act, just like cartoons, the carrot plant wiggled then disappeared through the dirt). I left for work and said... Drown the sucker. Got home that afternoon only to find the gopher still alive, munching on veggies in a large plastic bucket. When our son got home from school, the two of them drove it up into the hills near us and set it loose. I had dreams for a couple months that it was making its way back. We moved a year later, so I never did find out.
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Post by vintagebruce on Apr 5, 2016 7:13:53 GMT -8
I think the moral of this story is don't count on signs at any park to let you know if there is a lot of raccoon activity, either ask directly about their 'coon population or as has been mentioned assume you will get in the habit of taking "bear precautions". I spend twice as much on food for the feral cats we feed, because we can't get any food to the cats especially at dawn, dusk and after dark, until the raccoons and opossums have eaten their fill. The raccoons and opossums are not at all aggressive or threatening, they are totally indifferent to my threats to make them scoot, because they know I won't actually harm them. Finally, here is the answer to the age old question that is on everyone's mind. Do raccoons have salivary glands? (and all the other stuff you might want to know about raccoons...) www.sungazette.com/page/content.detail/id/564573.html |
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Post by vikx on Apr 5, 2016 21:31:13 GMT -8
Raccoons are NOT NICE or CUTE:
Our first experience was loosing the summer sausage on a horsey trail ride. Yup, opened the cooler and trotted down the trail with it. Vicx chased and grabbed it back. LOL. He trimmed the end and we slept with the dratted sausage from then on.
Two of our cats have been murdered by 'Coon. I had seen evidence of the cats leaping around in the wood shop but didn't connect two and two. The cats weren't the type to knock things down, but ever so often, stuff would be out of place of laying on the cement. Anyway, they got our dear older Boston and bit his tail to the bone. Boss didn't make it.
We "inherited" 22 year old Barney Cat a few years later because the neighbutts were too cheap to take him to the vet. One day, Vicx heard some yowling outside (broad daylight) and galloped out to see what was up. FOUR raccoons had Barney cornered. They were attacking for no reason, food readily available, just an old, old cat attacked for sport.(mom and 4 larger kits) Vicx cold cocked the most aggressive kit and the rest ran off. Barney survived for a week or so but once the antibiotic wore off, lost all appetite. So we lost poor ol' Barn Cat, too.
Beware Raccoons.
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