Hello !
We have a giant racoon that passes by the back of the house periodically, without fear or trepidation! He had forced entry into our composter, even after I had tied the lid down and placed a large rock wedged under the rope. He just pushed that aside! Another night he decided to drag the "green bin" across the patio in the middle of the night, causing the neighbours to ask next day if we had been "broken into". At that point I decided to use my large "Havahart" trap to trap him and ship him out of town. The bait was an opened can of sardines. A couple of nights went by - no luck! This morning, however, the trap was closed and I went to see the racoon. But it wasn't a racoon, it was an animal the likes of which I had never seen before. It had a long muzzle with a full set of teeth. When it saw me it opened its mouth and hissed! It was a silver grey colour with little black ears the shape of a black bear's. I estimate it weighed between 10 and 20 lbs. It had a large tail like a rat's. I wondered what I had trapped. I quickly checked with Google, and identified it down as an opossum. Reading about it indicated that it was a fairly docile animal, and I have to admit its pink pointed face, with eyes that reminded me of my Bichon Poo, told me that I would not want to harm it. But what to do with it? After talking it over with my wife, and with four "jurist" friends it was decided to release him. We kept him in a quiet spot out of the sun till darkness came and then released him (her?) back into the wild just behind our house. He shot out of the trap and was gone. I think both he and I had had a bad day over the whole episode! The only amusing part of the whole story is that an hour before darkness, just before I released the opossum, who should saunter past the end of the garden? The giant racoon! As if to say, "How are things going?"
