Kill a racoon? go to jail

[BantyChooks]

I *smashed him with what I had around the coop: cement block, hammer, shovel (for good measure). *As humanely as I could

I have done the same with a mink in my coop. Shovel worked pretty well, it was a fast lights-out. I definitely wouldn't classify it as a method to be used in anything but desperate circumstances.

 

[itsasmallfarm]

i live in a country nearest people are my grandparents, this year alone we have dispatched 3 raccoons (all in the spring/summer) so the fur was no good to skin and sell.

but where i live raccoons are a non-protected species meaning anyone who can legally kill them/hunt them (where hunting/dispatching a firearm is legal of course) so i find it very weird that someone went to jail over killing a coon, (i live in farm country coyotes and coons are just always open season here)

but am getting my fire arms licences soon, so i will be able to own a fire arm (i live in canada) so its my grandpa that dispatches them. also got my fur/trappers licence so i can legally trap them (again we have no season for them) with duke DP coon traps.

on dispatching we use a .22 short for them (my grandpa's choice i would use the .22lr) its quick, clean and painless.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

It is legal in almost every state to trap fur bearing animals in a so called "drowning" set.
In fact it is often illegal to NOT use a drowning set for aquatic furbearers.

 

[allosaurusrock]

Very interesting for me to read as someone who is in an area where owning guns is not always something that is liked.

 

[lazy gardener]

This whole story is totally, ridiculously, pathetic. I'm guessing the man lived in a pretty highly populated area. He was doing the neighbor a favor by dispatching a coon that obviously had lost all fear of humans. So, the animal kills his chickens, and damages his home. Perhaps it would continue attacking local cats, dogs, perhaps even the neighbor. Most likely he was in a neighborhood that was a gun free zone. So what was he supposed to do? Call ACO? Yeah, right. I doubt very much that they would come to remove the animal. SSS is an appropriate solution, but, I'm guessing he did not have this option. Drowning seems to be the next best viable option. Though, if he had a garage, or an out of sight location, he could have done the vac hose and car exhaust pipe with a tarp over the trap. Given those 2 options, I'd have done exactly what he did. Perhaps tell the neighbor that I was going out fishing for crabs.

Yet an other fine example of how totally skewed our legal system is.

 

[happyfrenchman]

Dead is dead. People think it should be easy, don't know. Back in the day, my uncle, who was a very good pigeon racer in Long Island NY... found a large racoon in his coop. It had killed a bunch of his birds. He segregated it in a section and then went into the kitchen and taped a knife to a broomstick. He didn't own a gun. He said that racoon fought for it's life pretty good. My aunt said there was blood everywhere. My uncle only said it was a mistake and that the racoon almost won. Sometimes you have to work within your limitations.

 

[Sublight]

on my dad's old farm, we used 22 to kill pigs and then we slit their throat, it always occurred to me as a rather gruesome way to go. the animal way in a lot of pain for more than a split second, especially on the occasion that the bullet didn't penetrate the brain enough and the animal ended up running around. so I guess that is my example of how a gun doesn't always end things so cleanly either. I had a trap line for a while back then too, just to see what that would be like. that involved clubbing, and that was not pretty either. I gave it up because it just didn't seem humane or really necessary. nowadays I put my energy into making bullet proof coops and let the critters be critters as long as they don't cause problems.

In that case, your dad shoulders the responsibility for that, and lack there must be a lack of concern for the animals that he is slaughtering if he KNOWS he doesn't get a clean kill. That's aweful if he knew this and did it anyway. That's on your dad 100%.
He could easily have stepped up to a .22 mag, or .223.
Any hunter knows you have to use the right gun for the prey.

There is a lot of difference between the thickness of a pig's skull, and a coons.

----

However I agree with you about the bullet proof coops.

 

[Trish1974]

I'm glad I live in redneck-ville. You would NEVER hear of that here (getting arrested that is).

 

[Jimmybeam01]

i second that!

 

[lilmillefleur]

Glad we haven't had to kill any predators ourselves...yikes! If it were me, I would use a gun or rifle.
I do agree that the guy who drowned the coon shouldn't have gone to jail, even though drowning isn't a pretty way to go.
But there was the Groundhog Incident we had...yeesh...
probably nothing compared to what some of you have had.