Live trapping is one thing; then what?

When I was growing up on Killough Valley in the Ozarks west of here, wild critters were taken for granted. I never, in my wildest dreams, thought I would wind up living in town and becoming Trapper Joe.

But that's exactly what's happened.

On the farm, we had all the wild animals you could imagine. Some of them were good neighbors. Others were not.

Red foxes thought the henhouse was a government-surplus distribution center. Skunks invariably found every pet around. Possums were always snooping and sniffing. Groundhogs were hunted down like terrorists because of the damage their burrows in fields could do to farm equipment.

And we had bobcats, deer, screech owls, snakes of every description, black bears and mountain lions.

Don't argue with me about the mountain lions. Even though it was a long time ago, I saw them for myself, so I'm not taking anyone else's word on that subject.

There were raccoons at the farm too, but they didn't hang around the house. Perhaps they didn't like our ponds. Or maybe they saw no reason to leave their territory along the river over the hill.

Our house in the middle of Cape Girardeau, however, has plenty of raccoon visitors. They target trash cans without secure lids all over the neighborhood. I have a report that one neighbor fed the cute ring-tails until she was overrun by the masked and mischievous bandits.

Too late.

Now the raccoons think we humans exist to serve their needs.

Our house became a popular raccoon haunt this year when we expanded the patio fountain and acquired some goldfish. The combination of trickling water and small fish was just too much for the raccoons to resist.

After destroying the fountain -- or water feature, if you've been watching any of the popular TV landscaping shows -- twice in a two-week period, I decided to take action.

I spoke to Miss Kitty at length about her obligation to keep raccoons away from the patio. She responded by nudging her food dish, which was either a signal that more food comes before more work or she's bored with the expensive, highly nutritious cat food I give her twice a day.

So I turned to the Missouri Conservation Department, which has live traps you can borrow. And they work. In just over a week I've trapped three raccoons. The critters love canned cat food, the cheaper and nastier the better.

And Miss Kitty is pouting.

Since the conservation department has a lot of requests for traps, I don't get to keep the one I borrowed forever. Which is how I wound up at a farm-supply store Thursday looking to buy a trap of my own.

"I think there's one left," said the store clerk.

Sure enough, there was just one left. When I paid for the trap, the clerk said the store had been selling traps like hotcakes -- big traps for raccoons and possums and small traps for squirrels.

There's no one to blame for this problem except ourselves. The raccoons didn't invite us to build homes where they live. And when we construct water features and get careless with the trash, raccoons respond by holding evangelistic rallies proclaiming the good news that you don't have to die to get to heaven. It's right here!

Live trapping, of course, means dealing with live animals. Personally, I like a river -- a wide one -- between our house and any raccoons I release. But that's just me.

R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.