As soon as night fell, I heard a crash. I was on the phone with Sam and knew that the raccoon had encountered the trap. I wasn't sure if it was actually caught or had somehow tripped the doors--but there was definitely action.
I could see that the traps' two doors had slammed shut, but as we'd covered it with old towels (to disguise its trap essence), I wasn't sure if the raccoon was actually inside. George had told me it would make a racket once caught, but no sound was emerging from the shrouded trap.
With Sam's encouragement, I gathered my courage, and with a broom handle lifted the one of the towels. The trap was occupied, but there was no movement. Could I have killed the raccoon? I was not enjoying this procedure. Eventually, I lifted off the second towel, and sure enough, there was a living raccoon, in a state of shock perhaps, but very much alive. Of course, I could not remember George's instructions as to how to release it, so I ended the conversation with Sam and called George, who reminded me that I only had to lift the lever off one of the doors and set the trap down in the field in back of the house.
That was relatively easy. I dragged and pulled the heavy trap into the field and lifted the latch. Nothing happened. The poor shocked raccoon made no move to regain its freedom. George assured me it would eventually figure things out, so I left it in the damp night air.
When I returned, flashlight in hand, an hour later, the trap was empty. The raccoon is free And I don't have to worry about waking up to mysterious crashes in the middle of the night.
I did not take a picture of the shocked trapped raccoon, but it did look very much like this.
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| the morning after |
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