53 ~ Taoist predator control

Raccoons have been snooping around the hen coop of late, ransacking the chicken feed and making some attempts to dig under the wire of the pen.  In the past this would not have ended well, for either the raccoons or the chickens. I feel a sense of responsibility to protect my girls, which I take seriously, if not always successfully (two winters ago I lost my favorite hen, Betty, to an opossum).  

My general method has been to live trap interlopers, and dispatch them, as they stare at me, with a shot to the head from a .22 rifle. But I can feel the psychic toll this has started to take.  Several years ago I killed an entire family of raccoons, a mother and four kits, that had been raiding the garden.  I’ll spare you the details, but suffice to say that some of them, including the mother, did not die easily or quietly. The best I could do afterwards is make meager amends by feeding their spirits (with an offering of cornmeal), and burying them together, huddled in death as a family.  I still carry the trauma of that experience, like a ringing in the ears.  And I probably added several (if not several thousand) lifetimes to my tally to work off the karma.  

Lately I’ve been searching for a better way, one less traumatic for both parties.  Catch-and-kill varmint control is also only a temporary solution.  Permanently remove (by bullet or by translocation) a possum or raccoon, and another will soon move in to fill the vacancy.

What I need is a free-ranging outdoor dog to keep the uninvited locals at bay, but my travel schedule has thus far stayed my hand from adding that solution to the household.  Nor are electric fences the full answer – my gardens are too large and woolly around the edges (e.g., Little Shop of Horrors squash vines) for that to work.

Last summer, I tried something else.  One night I trapped a raccoon in my corn patch, and the next morning, rather than shooting him, we had a talk.  I told the bandit prisoner that if he again bothered my heirloom Guatemalan corn, or my hens, there would be trouble between us.  But if he left them alone, we could co-exist.  I then asked him if he wanted me to get the .22 or the garden hose, his choice, and he opted for the hose.  I gave him a bit of a spray to add to the stress of his experience, then let him go.  The rest of the year I never saw a raccoon anywhere near the garden. Scared straight.

Taoists and Zen Buddhists understand a concept of underlying, universal principles, pictured as lines of flow in the world (in Japanese Zen these are called ri).  The more we align our lives and actions along and in parallel with these intrinsic lines of flow, the easier and more serene our passage through life will be. Trouble starts when we try to force things and work across and against the lines of ri.  This method of catch & release predator control feels more in line with the ri.  I’m just temporarily interrupting the raccoon or possum’s passage, not bringing it to a screeching halt, unnecessarily.  Unnecessary because I’ve discovered that this method indeed works better. If I’d killed the raccoon, another would have moved in, for whom the corn patch (or the hens) would have been a novel attraction.  Déjà vu all over again… (‘Raccoon Day’).  Instead, after its pardon and release, I now had a resident raccoon that kept other raccoons from its territory, and was afraid to come near the garden. Almost as good as a dog.

And so recently, in response to the disturbances around the convent, I put out two live traps there, and caught two raccoons. A couple of nights later, two more: this was again a family.

With this family this time, I took a gentler approach (making living amends as it were). We had a discussion each time, then I spray painted parts of their tails and rumps blaze orange so I could recognize them again, cooled them off a bit with the hose, and let them go. I’ve not seen a raccoon since, and the coop has been left undisturbed. 

Aligning with the ri has served me, and the raccoons, well, and continues to do so the more I attend to it. There is a beautiful, small book I can recommend (small in size, big in heart) that covers this topic, written by Madisonian Kenneth Kushner, One Arrow, One Life.

Freedom! -butt shot by Greg McCune

Good news eagle update

I am most pleased to report that last week the young bald eagle fledged from the nest near the house – albeit quite far behind schedule as we know (see posts 35, 36 and 41). But I think it’s still enough time for him or her to learn the ropes of flying and hunting before autumn.  In the meantime, the parents continue to feed junior as he or she gains competence in the ways of eagle life.

-photo by Jerry Davis

Be well all, and go gently with the ri – even when that includes a pandemic.