Sherry Chandler

Ursula update

Ursula the racoon waif/mother–I believe she is the same as the one I rescued from starvation 2 years ago and gave to a wildlife rehabitator– is still lurking about and begging for the occasional handout of cheap dog food so she can make milk for her babies. I was afraid that two of her cubs had gotten themselves run over just up the road two Saturdays ago. I’d only ever seen her with three babies. But then we saw her leading a pack of four[!] past the back yard late last week so I guess her babies are OK. I wonder if she has adopted a stray herownself. There was an adult coon killed on the bypass about 1/2 mile W of here a couple of days before I saw the dead cubs, so wonder if they were her babies looking for help.

I know that baby coons will do so. Ursula’s mother was run over one Tuesday or Wednesday in June 2003 and on Friday while I was bush-hogging along the road I looked back to see a small animal chasing the sissy wheel on the ‘hog. After I stopped the tractor the animal ran up to the front end, grabbed a tractor tire and looked at me. I once saw an article which argued that baby animals’ cuteness is a survival tactic. In Ursula’s case it worked. I pulled on the pair of welding gloves I carry on the tractor to fight briars and I picked her up by her scruff and went looking for a temporary cage. Fish & Wildlife Guy was gone for the weekend from his office [he never returned my answer machine message either] so I looked on the net for ‘coon formula. Too complicated and expressed in gallons for sets of orphan coons [I guess] but mainly it was SWEET so I just poured her out some condensed milk and let her paddle in it and then lick her paws. Then I gave her some water so she could wash herself off. I found an authorized rehabilitator by Sunday–it is against the law to keep wild animal as pets in Ky any more and coons are LOTS of mischief–the cats would never have forgiven me.

About 20 years ago friends of ours, Sally and Johnny Wilson, raised three orphaned baby coons from the time they were too small to pee by themselves. They had to gently rub the urinary area on each cub with a wet Kleenex as if they were the mother coon licking her babies to get them to void [this goes for anal areas and cack as well]. Cats do the same for their tiny kittens. There are some advantages to being a hominid. Anyway, the baby coons taught the Wilsons’ cats all kinds of clever tricks before they went back to the wild. Their bread box was never inviolate again.

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