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Video: Wildlife Experts Help Raccoon Family in Arlington

by ARLnow.com | August 14, 2012 at 3:54 pm | 1,811 views | 23 Comments

A division of the Humane Society of the United States recently helped an Arlington household that had a family of raccoons trapped in their basement and chimney.

Experts from Humane Wildlife Services, a wildlife conflict solution service provided to homeowners and businesses in the Washington, D.C. area, helped remove the raccoons from the home, then helped reunite the raccoon family — a mom and her four babies — while ensuring that they found a new home.

The Humane Society produced a video about the incident. The video “really shows the strength of the maternal bond between a raccoon mom and her young,” according to a narrator.

DarkHeart

Saw a raccoon run through front yards on our street last weekend. They’re mean critters, Stay back.
- lovesanimals
  
  they are not mean. they are defensive as anything would be when faced with an adversary as dangerous as humans.
  - Kevan
    
    Hilarious.
    Someone named darkheart says racoons are mean and of course the one who says they’re not has a handle of lovesanimals.
    
    You can’t write this stuff.
Maggie

I wish I’d known about this organization when I had them in my chimney .. and when I had what definitely looked like a seriously ill or rabid raccoon lying and stumbling in my yard in the midday. I called the AWLA and their representative chased it up a tree and then said there was nothing she could do since it was up a tree. Duh. I later saw it in the front yard, and then staggering across the street and down into the sewer. We have children playing on our block. That simply was not a risk AWLA should have allowed.
- Familiar
  
  AWLA sucks. Had a similar experience once. Not responsive or helpful at all. They don’t even have anyone working on weekends–WTF?!
  
  We need to have an actual county department that does, you know, animal control.
  - DarkHeart
    
    Someone call Turtleman!
  - http://purple.com/purple.html Captain Pup McPuppo
    
    gimme a holler next time guys, i’ll take care of it. *howls*
  - Lauren
    
    Actually, they do have animal control officers working weekends and holidays. They were at my home for a sick and dying fox on Christmas Day last year.
    
    If the county funded them more, perhaps we could have more than just a handful working 24 hours a day to cover our entire county for every single lost dog report, animal cruelty call, animal rescue call, wildlife in the area call….oh yeah, they are supposed to be in the vicinity of every single unleashed dog to cite the person….can’t forget that complaint….
    - Au Contraire
      
      All I know is that when I’ve called on a weekend, I get a voicemail message.
      - alsolovesanimals
        
        AWLA has open-to-the-public hours of 12-4 on the weekends. If you LISTEN to the voice mail there is a prompt to connect you to their answering service for emergencies and the ACO on duty will be contacted and will respond. I think I’ve met all the Officers at this point and THEY ARE ALL GREAT! Glad our Animal Control could assist in this situation!
        YAY AWLA AND YAY HUMANE WILDLIFE SERVICES!!!
- lovesanimals
  
  what you are describing sounds like the raccoon was probably poisoned, not rabid. when people put out poison to kill mice and rats other animals (possum, raccoon, rabbitts, raccoon, owls, hawks, and eagles even cats and dogs) are usually victims too. it is a slow and very painful death. the animals stagger, writhe in pain for days and are often consumed by birds of prey who also die horrible deaths as a result of the poison.
Alex

Glad it worked out this time. We had a similar situation in our house, and they refused to help us extract the displaced babies — claiming the mother raccoon would find her way back to our attic and take them with her. This never happened and the babies were getting dehydrated — so we had to extract them ourselves, re-hydrate them with some baby animal formula from the pet store.

Days passed before they got back with us and they finally agreed to have someone come to our place and pick up the babies. They promised that they would be well taken care of and released within some vicinity of where they were born. We were also told we would get updates here and there and we were given the contact info of the new caretaker.

We tried to check on them a few weeks later — but never got a call back from the caretaker. We also contacted the two people we worked with through the Humane Society, but they also never returned our calls.

Hopefully this article is a sign that they are taking displaced wildlife issues more seriously and not a PR stunt.
- Tabby_TwoTone
  
  What do you mean, Humane Society? You’re not in Arlington?
  
  I think AWLA used to fund the wildlife rescue team sufficiently–now, not.
  - Alex
    
    Tabby: AWLA would not even touch the issue. They told us to contact an exterminator or the Humane Society.
Reality

These folks probably stepped over some homeless folks on their way to recue these poor raccoons. Give me a break, what a waste on time and money.
- Greg
  
  Homeless people in any city don’t go hungry. There are several options in the area. Raccoons without their mom, on the other hand….
  
  I think raccoons are nasty and dirty little creatures but they’re part of the food chain.
- lovesanimals
  
  what do homeless people have to do with showing compassion to helpless animals. why do you try to take the story and denigrate the wonderful story of saving these animals?
  - B Div
    
    Do you feel the same way about rats?
TJLinBallston

Rabies Continuation Efforts such as this defy logic.
- drax
  
  Must kill all wildlife to be safe!
lovesanimals

good for the homeowner in the story to get real help for these wild animals. they are doing their best to survive as humans steal all the land and resources for themselves with not a concern for the other speices who live on earth as well.
Mitt Romney

Tie ‘em to the roof of the van!
Kevan

Barcroft Apartments has a family that lives there. They traverse the sewer system on South Four Mile Run Dr from street to parking lot and they live in some of the building’s attics. I’ve never heard any horror stories but I was always concerned they’d dig through the ceilings and would call maintenance on them all the time to seal the vent they snuck through.

But then again, Arlington is sprawling, they have to live somewhere. :\

Water Main Leak Causes Fish Kill In Four Mile Run Morning Notes

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