Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 13, 1990 TAG: 9007120062
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Bold, noisy, sometimes brawling with cats, they wander day and night through his end of Locust Avenue, on the eastern edge of town.
Keeble and his neighbors have seen them on porches and lawns, heard them rummaging through trash cans. "They bang around out there, make themselves at home," Keeble said.
Once they marched up to Keeble's front porch - under the very nose, presumably, of his German Shepherd, Elsa - and ate the pooch's food.
Elsa didn't argue. "I guess she just laid there and watched them," Keeble said.
"They beat up the cat one night," Keeble added. "I think he was sort of cocky, and they just showed him who's territory he's on around here."
The cat ended up at the vet, Keeble said.
Two weeks ago, Keeble set a trap baited with cat food in his carport, just in front of his car.
To date, he's nabbed nine.
Peter Bromley, an extension specialist at Virginia Tech, calls that a pretty good catch.
"He's either a great trapper, or there's an awful lot of raccoons in the area," Bromley said.
A lot of raccoons, say Keeble and his neighbors, is right.
Juanita Amburgey fed the critters for five years or more on her patio, she said. She wasn't sure how many routinely came to dinner.
But before she finally stopped feeding them, Amburgey said, the raccoons were munching through 10 pounds of cat food a night, at a cost of $100 a month.
"It makes me sick to think about it, that I'm not feeding them anymore," said Amburgey - who at one time also fed 25 stray cats.
Amburgey, whose home backs up on a wooded area, said she quit feeding the raccoons about a month ago because of the expense. "I worry about them," she said.
It was about three weeks ago, as Keeble recalls, that the raccoons began to roam through the neighborhood. He figures the animals got hungry and began looking elsewhere for their nightly meal.
"They're usually shy of people," said Bromley, the extension specialist. "But if they're around people, and folks don't frighten them, gradually they become more and more bold."
Keeble told of a neighbor who confronted them one morning in his front yard, as he was taking out the garbage. "They weren't scared of him. He had to run throw rocks."
In addition to raiding trash cans, the gang once worked open the door to Keeble's shed, then opened a trash can full of dog food and helped themselves, Keeble said. "They're tricky little devils."
Keeble, who has been trapping the raccoons almost nightly in a small cage, said he is dumping the animals in remote places outside of town, where they won't be a nuisance to people.
Keeble said he sprayed yellow paint on all of the raccoons' tails before releasing them, so he'll know if they find their way back.
Bromley said Keeble is doing the right thing. Raccoons who have become used to people may menace neighborhood pets, or even children who corner them without suspecting their scrappy nature, he said.
There is also the possibility that the raccoons carry rabies or distemper, Bromley said.
"I view what Jim Keeble's doing as a reasonable preventive measure," said Bromley, who advised against feeding raccoons or other wild animals.
Amburgey said a veterinarian advised her against feeding the raccooons in the first place, but she couldn't stand to see them go hungry.
She said she also has seen deer in the neighborhood, which borders on a wooded area.
by CNB