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Father charged in baby's raccoon attack
Some of y'all may have heard that a couple of weeks ago, a 9-month-old baby was mauled by two raccoons in her home here in Atlanta. Since the story broke, I've had a variety of emotions: sadness and horror, of course, and fear that people would jump to the wrong conclusions about raccoons based upon this one incident, and decide that all raccoons are rabid, vicious creatures. I also knew that there had to be more to the story than the news was reporting, because two healthy raccoons don't just go into someone's house and attack babies randomly.
Well, it came out yesterday that the father had been keeping the raccoons in the house as pets. Yep.
We're talking about it on a raccoon rehab e-mail group I'm part of. I've copied and pasted my response to the group below, in addition to my e-mail to the author of the AJC article.
This hits close to home for me, quite literally - I am the only active, licensed raccoon rehabber in metro-Atlanta right now, so these raccoons would have come to me if the family had chosen to get them to a rehabber. Here in Georgia, it is illegal to own any native wildlife as pets, and DNR doesn't take it lightly when raccoons are involved. During raccoon season, I get several calls a week from people who had been keeping the baby raccoon as a pet and it has gotten too big for their apartment, or they can't handle the commitment, or the raccoon is destroying their house. I always take in the raccoons if they are willing to give them to me. Sadly, there have been 5 people this year who have called me to ask if I can take their pet raccoon and when I agree to it, they never follow through with it. I was searching all of my phone records when this story broke a couple of weeks ago, making sure that this family hadn't called me and slipped through the cracks. They never contacted me, so there was nothing I could do in this situation.
It breaks my heart. Maybe if wildlife rehabilitators were more well-known in our society, they would have called me when they found the babies. Maybe if a neighbor had reported it to DNR, I could have intervened and gotten the raccoons away from the family without giving DNR the option of euthanizing them. Sometimes our game wardens give families a couple of days to find a home for their "pet" before they confiscate the animal and "destroy" it. I have all of these "what if"s going through my head, of how I could have prevented this from happening. I know that's ridiculous - I didn't even know these two raccoons existed, so there was nothing I could have done. I still feel awful about it, though.
I'm contacting the writer of the AJC story to let her know that I appreciate her balanced article (it wasn't an OMG ALL RACCOONS HAVE RABIES THEY SHOULD ALL DIE article, for once!), and also to see if she can help me spread the word about wildlife rehabilitators so people know we are there to help and take the animals into our care before this happens again.
And the e-mail to the AJC:
Thank you for writing the story on the father charged in the baby’s raccoon attack. This was a terrible incident that deserves to be covered. As a licensed wildlife rehabilitator here in metro-Atlanta who takes in raccoons (I’ve got 16 that I’m rehabbing right now), I really appreciate the fact that you did not demonize raccoons in the story.
Raccoons are amazing animals, but when the lines between “wildlife” and “pets” are blurred, they can wreck havoc on the family (and the house!). I’ve taken in “pet” raccoons from people whose hearts were originally in the right place – they found an abandoned baby raccoon on the side of the road and wanted to help it live. Then they end up caring for it for a while and a “bond” occurs – more on the side of the human than the raccoon – and then they selfishly decide to keep it as a pet. While raccoons can legally be kept as pets in other states, they cannot here in Georgia, and it’s for good reason – they are wild at heart and can destroy houses and do even worse to people.
I encourage people who have found injured, orphaned, or sick wild animals to contact a wildlife rehabilitator in their area. Georgia’s Department of Natural Resources has an online directory of all licensed rehabilitators in Georgia, including the general animal category (small mammals, deer, reptiles, birds, etc.) they are licensed to care for. I’ve included the link below: http://georgiawildlife.com/sites/default/files/uploads/wildlife/hunting/pdf/special_permits/Wildlife_Rehabilitator_List.pdf
Unfortunately, the list does not go into detail about the exact species that each rehabilitator will take in – most rehabbers tend to concentrate on just a couple of species so we can have the correct cages, formula, medicines, etc. For example, I’m licensed for small mammals and Rabies Vector Species (RVS), but I really only deal with raccoons because there’s such a need for a raccoon rehabber in the area. Because we tend to specialize in only a couple of animals, it can be frustrating to the person who finds the animal because sometimes they have to make several phone calls in order to find the right rehabilitator. We, as rehabilitators, are trying to work on a better system so that people can find our information easier and know who to call faster. We’re volunteers - most of us who have full-time jobs in addition to this - but we are dedicated to helping the public save the animals in any way we can. I wish this family had called me when they found the baby raccoons, or any way along this journey – I would have been happy to talk them through my rehabilitation process, meet up with them (or even invite them to my home to inspect my “facility!”), and accept the raccoons from them so that I could raise them in a healthy environment and then release them when they were old enough. This entire incident could have been prevented if different steps were taken.
Since comments are not enabled on your news story, I cannot post this in there. Is there any other way I can get this information into AJC? Could you post the link to the rehab list, so people know that this is the appropriate avenue to deal with orphaned/injured/sick wildlife? I feel as though if we get the word out more, hopefully we can prevent this awful tragedy from occurring again.
I hope this helps get the word out, so more people don't attempt to keep them as pets. I'd gladly take on more raccoons if it meant tragedies like this were prevented.
Well, it came out yesterday that the father had been keeping the raccoons in the house as pets. Yep.
We're talking about it on a raccoon rehab e-mail group I'm part of. I've copied and pasted my response to the group below, in addition to my e-mail to the author of the AJC article.
This hits close to home for me, quite literally - I am the only active, licensed raccoon rehabber in metro-Atlanta right now, so these raccoons would have come to me if the family had chosen to get them to a rehabber. Here in Georgia, it is illegal to own any native wildlife as pets, and DNR doesn't take it lightly when raccoons are involved. During raccoon season, I get several calls a week from people who had been keeping the baby raccoon as a pet and it has gotten too big for their apartment, or they can't handle the commitment, or the raccoon is destroying their house. I always take in the raccoons if they are willing to give them to me. Sadly, there have been 5 people this year who have called me to ask if I can take their pet raccoon and when I agree to it, they never follow through with it. I was searching all of my phone records when this story broke a couple of weeks ago, making sure that this family hadn't called me and slipped through the cracks. They never contacted me, so there was nothing I could do in this situation.
It breaks my heart. Maybe if wildlife rehabilitators were more well-known in our society, they would have called me when they found the babies. Maybe if a neighbor had reported it to DNR, I could have intervened and gotten the raccoons away from the family without giving DNR the option of euthanizing them. Sometimes our game wardens give families a couple of days to find a home for their "pet" before they confiscate the animal and "destroy" it. I have all of these "what if"s going through my head, of how I could have prevented this from happening. I know that's ridiculous - I didn't even know these two raccoons existed, so there was nothing I could have done. I still feel awful about it, though.
I'm contacting the writer of the AJC story to let her know that I appreciate her balanced article (it wasn't an OMG ALL RACCOONS HAVE RABIES THEY SHOULD ALL DIE article, for once!), and also to see if she can help me spread the word about wildlife rehabilitators so people know we are there to help and take the animals into our care before this happens again.
And the e-mail to the AJC:
Thank you for writing the story on the father charged in the baby’s raccoon attack. This was a terrible incident that deserves to be covered. As a licensed wildlife rehabilitator here in metro-Atlanta who takes in raccoons (I’ve got 16 that I’m rehabbing right now), I really appreciate the fact that you did not demonize raccoons in the story.
Raccoons are amazing animals, but when the lines between “wildlife” and “pets” are blurred, they can wreck havoc on the family (and the house!). I’ve taken in “pet” raccoons from people whose hearts were originally in the right place – they found an abandoned baby raccoon on the side of the road and wanted to help it live. Then they end up caring for it for a while and a “bond” occurs – more on the side of the human than the raccoon – and then they selfishly decide to keep it as a pet. While raccoons can legally be kept as pets in other states, they cannot here in Georgia, and it’s for good reason – they are wild at heart and can destroy houses and do even worse to people.
I encourage people who have found injured, orphaned, or sick wild animals to contact a wildlife rehabilitator in their area. Georgia’s Department of Natural Resources has an online directory of all licensed rehabilitators in Georgia, including the general animal category (small mammals, deer, reptiles, birds, etc.) they are licensed to care for. I’ve included the link below: http://georgiawildlife.com/sites/default/files/uploads/wildlife/hunting/pdf/special_permits/Wildlife_Rehabilitator_List.pdf
Unfortunately, the list does not go into detail about the exact species that each rehabilitator will take in – most rehabbers tend to concentrate on just a couple of species so we can have the correct cages, formula, medicines, etc. For example, I’m licensed for small mammals and Rabies Vector Species (RVS), but I really only deal with raccoons because there’s such a need for a raccoon rehabber in the area. Because we tend to specialize in only a couple of animals, it can be frustrating to the person who finds the animal because sometimes they have to make several phone calls in order to find the right rehabilitator. We, as rehabilitators, are trying to work on a better system so that people can find our information easier and know who to call faster. We’re volunteers - most of us who have full-time jobs in addition to this - but we are dedicated to helping the public save the animals in any way we can. I wish this family had called me when they found the baby raccoons, or any way along this journey – I would have been happy to talk them through my rehabilitation process, meet up with them (or even invite them to my home to inspect my “facility!”), and accept the raccoons from them so that I could raise them in a healthy environment and then release them when they were old enough. This entire incident could have been prevented if different steps were taken.
Since comments are not enabled on your news story, I cannot post this in there. Is there any other way I can get this information into AJC? Could you post the link to the rehab list, so people know that this is the appropriate avenue to deal with orphaned/injured/sick wildlife? I feel as though if we get the word out more, hopefully we can prevent this awful tragedy from occurring again.
I hope this helps get the word out, so more people don't attempt to keep them as pets. I'd gladly take on more raccoons if it meant tragedies like this were prevented.
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The story is heartbreaking, but of course you couldn't have done anything differently - THEY were the ones who should have done differently. Hopefully getting the word out about rehabbers will prevent something similar from happening in the future.
ps. and the article says the baby is recovering so that's good!
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The story is so heartbreaking. I know that logically, there was nothing I could have done - I didn't even know this situation existed until it was too late. But still, I feel so awful for the baby. Thankfully, she's expected to fully recover. This could have been so much worse!