The wireless TV really worked well (except for jamming our wireless internet). I saw Sinda each time before he made any noise at the cage. I say each time because he visited the area 3 times last night beginning at 10:30.
His first pass was to check the feeder and surrounding grounds. He vacuumed up everything available and didn’t even look at the trap.
On the second pass he circled the trap, reached in and ate the chum I placed near the door to lure him in. Then he reached in and grabbed the water bowl and pulled it all the way to the front of the trap. Then he left. I went back to bed.
I then heard a cat howl over the monitor. I looked out by the trap but nothing was there. Then about 11:15, as I was dropping off to sleep, I opened my eyes enough to see the monitor and Sinda was back. I got up and got in position to spring the trap. The rope holding the trap door up was simply trapped in the closed sliding glass door. To spring the trap I just slide the door open. I watched Sinda circle the trap, walk away, return, sniff inside the trap and leave again. I thought he was gone for good but in a few minutes he returned again and tried to reach more food. On this attempt he put half his body in the trap, stretched as far as he could and scraped up some more of the chum. I thought he was too trap shy and that he would never go all the way in.
He backed out. The he stepped in with all but his rear foot and stretched out to get more food. He still could not get the big bowlful of food at the back of the trap. He backed out again and began circling the cage. This is when Meredith showed up and came toward him. Sinda charged her and chased her away. Charged up with energy and wanting all the food for himself the raccoon walked quickly into the trap—still dragging one foot out for a moment. Then he lifted the foot. I quickly opened the sliding door, the trap door fell. Sinda was quick. He managed to briefly get his front paws under the dropping door. He didn’t have the leverage to stop the door from dropping and so he pulled back to keep from pinching his little hands. The door fell in place and the latch engaged. Raccoon #3 was now caught.
I made sure the trap was secure, covered it with a sheet to keep Sinda from getting too scared and went to bed. The excitement of the catch must have caused my body to release adrenalin because it took me a while to finally fall asleep when I went to bed. This wasn’t helped by the fact that both Penny and I had upset tummies from some Papa Johns pizza we had earlier in the day. We ate that for lunch with the couple we were working with. I don’t know if they got sick also.
This morning it was time to put Sinda in the CRV and take him to hid new home. I’m getting into a regular routine here. I hope this is the last time. At least I’m getting good at catching them.
I arrived at the lake, opened the CRV tailgate, slid the trap out far enough to open the sliding door and opened the trap. Sinda just sat there.
I had to go around the side of the CRV, open the rear passenger door and show my face at the back of the cage to get him to finally move. When he reached the opening he stepped out on one paw, looked down at the ground, looked at me and again just stayed there.
He finally jumped down and took off without looking back. This was my last shot of him before he left.
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