Oh boy! - One of these days!
As
@Texag87 has already answered for me: I would love to have a firearm, i am legally allowed to own one, but being "only" a permanent resident the amount of paperwork is too much for gun-stores - i tried three., so a shot on short distance in the head is unfortunately not an option. I would do that if i only could.
Weather drowning or hitting the head is more (in)humane, i cannot decide, but at the moment i only have a cage-trap from which i would have to release the 'coon in order to whack its head and the risk of not hitting it hard enough and then having an injured animal on the run is not an option for me.
The Racoons do only what nature dictates them to do, but we have accepted a responsibility to protect our birds against predators, so we have to do what we must do…
Thank you very much for answering to this, while i was on the phone with my customer for hours. Really appreciate that!
I thought about that too, here are my two problems with that:
- There are several videos in the internet where raccoons have bitten or ripped off their own hand in order to escape a hand-trap. Again you have a badly wounded animal on the run.
- Before something bad happens to a raccoon i caught, i check if it is a lactating female. I will not kill any mother raccoon and sentence her little ones to death by starvation [period] Should i capture a lactating racoon, she will be released on my property (legal here) after i scared the sh*t out of her, in hope she will tell her babies not to visit that crazy, evil hillbilly…
I do not enjoy killing any animal (Ok, ticks and mosquitoes i do!) but i have to protect my duckies, it is my responsibility and so i do this as quickly as i can with the measures i have available.