Baby Raccoons in the Yard
We had young raccoons in the yard this evening. They were huddled under the table on the deck, definitely uneasy around us. John had a camera and I had the camcorder. We could within 10 feet of them. They made little mewing and soft chattering sounds at times.
I didn’t know what to do with them. Fortunately I found an interesting and informative web site on baby raccoons. From it I learned to leave the little ones alone because baby raccoons are up and awake in the daytime and often explore close to their den/nest while their mother is sleeping during the day. The web site said to leave the youngsters alone. It also said that there is a time when the mother moves the babies from one den to another. Since she can only move one at a time, people sometimes find a couple of young raccoons and wrongly believe them have been abandoned by their mother or that the mother has been killed.
Not so, according to Dory and the Orphans at http://www.doryandtheorphans.com The mother will come back to them. Even if the mother has perished, other mother raccoons often adopt orphaned youngster. The information on the web site says not to feed them, so I did not.
The web site also says that to move young raccoons away from their mother at too early an age will lead to their death. They cannot survive until they are almost adults. Since it is July now and babies are normally born in the spring, these youngsters are definitely not old enough to be separated from their mother.
I’ll see if they’re still there in the morning. Hopefully, their mother has taken care of them. Otherwise, the web site has a network of raccoon rescuers.
Seeing these lovely little wild ones, has filled me with hope and gratitude.
