The Raccoon Odyssey

Entry, Foot in Mouth
Rachel Turner, NCSU

I spent two summers in high school volunteering at a wildlife center, a busy facility made up of a few run-down portables and some flight aviaries and duck ponds.  Our mission was to take in and treat injured wildlife, from nestling songbirds that had clumsily fallen out of their nests to abandoned coyote pups. I worked with a lot of raccoons while I was there, from blind infants who could only squirm and suckle to huge adult males who wanted nothing more from life than the chance to rip off my hand.  However, nothing prepared me for the small female that I encountered on a hot day in late July.  My supervisor Ashley and I were doing the evening rounds, giving all the animals their delicious dinner of watermelon, apples, and dead frozen mice.  We ventured out into the late-afternoon heat to take care of the animals out in Building C, a crummy and musty portable where we kept large birds and other special cases.  At first glance, this particular raccoon was just another scared animal, crouched at the back of her crate, watching us switch out her old food dish.  When I reached in to pull out her bedding towel, which was crusted with feces and dried urine, she shifted a bit to the side and exposed the side of her back leg, which was when I noticed her wound.  She had somehow acquired a large, gaping cut on her haunch, and as soon as Ashley saw it she sent me to get the staple gun.  However, this little raccoon turned out to be a lot more than we had bargained for. 

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