Virtually any experienced wildlife control specialist has a good raccoon story or two.
Some incidents showcase the nocturnal creature’s skill and finesse. Wildlife biologist Joe Taylor recalled one case that stood out at his business, Paw Control Wildlife Solutions in Hiawatha.
“The raccoons … traveled to the basement, came up the stairs and ate from the cat food bowl. (The homeowners) couldn’t imagine this sort of thing could be possible anywhere,” he said. “I had to chuckle a little bit — I hadn’t thought of that one.”
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Others who have suffered greater levels of destruction aren’t laughing as much. For wildlife control specialists like Ben Stutzman, raccoon calls have been some of his most memorable with Catch’em Critters in Wellman.
After growing up in the country with a pet raccoon who blended in with his family’s cats, he’s seen the best and worst of the little bandits. Sometimes they break into porches to steal bird feed or set up community latrines on the deck.
Other times their determination puts human engineering to shame. One call early in his career involved a mother raccoon who became separated from the den she had made with her offspring in a house. After returning from an outing, she found her usual vent entrance blocked with plywood by homeowners who thought they could solve the problem on their own.
“She decided she was going to make her own way in,” Stutzman said. So the raccoon started by ripping shingles off the roof where the attached garage met the house. When she found sheeting underneath, she kept going. Eventually, she chewed through metal soffit to be reunited with her young.
“Raccoons are just really tough. They are amazing survivalists,” said Stutzman, who has been running his wildlife solutions business for 11 years. “I’ve seen where they chewed through 2-by-4 studs to go laterally through a wall.”
With the raccoon population in Iowa nearly tripling since 2006, more and more homeowners are becoming privy to raccoon stories of their own.
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In 2006, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources counted 2,417 raccoons in its nocturnal surveys in all of Iowa’s 99 counties. This year, it counted 6,486 — a surge of over 268 percent in the last 16 years, and an increase of 23 percent in the last year alone, despite localized outbreaks of fatal canine distemper virus.
County data shows Benton and Iowa counties with some of the highest counts in the state. More urban counties, like Linn and Johnson, tend to have lower counts.
From 2019 to 2020, Joe Taylor’s Paw Control Wildlife Solutions saw a 52 percent jump in calls for raccoons. Along with a bigger spike this fall than previous years, the overall raccoon call increase has been sustained through the last three years for his business.
Each year, Paw Control fields over 100 calls for raccoons and captures hundreds of them.
Stutzman’s more rural business hasn’t seen a noticeable increase in raccoon-specific calls, but he’s heard from others who have attracted hundreds of raccoons in their corn patches. Raccoons make up about 25 percent of his calls.
“The last two years, I’ve heard astronomical numbers from those (corn patches),” he said. “So I know the population is up and doing well.”
State Rep. Dean Fisher, a Tama County Republican representing House District 72, knows the devastation of losing sweet corn to raccoons. After years of losing sweet corn just before harvest, he started hearing from constituents suffering high-dollar damage.
One farmer, he said, suffered $10,000 in damage to a combine when he started it after a raccoon climbed inside. Another found dozens of raccoons in a cattle feeder.
He hopes stalled legislation, which he intends to file again in the next session, will help farmers who believe the Iowa DNR’s current allowances for killing nuisance animals aren’t enough.
“You can’t be out there 24 hours to see when one of these critters would get into your field,” he said. “You have to eradicate them in your area beforehand, get preventive steps to thin the population before damage even starts.”
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Some incidents showcase the nocturnal creature’s skill and finesse. Wildlife biologist Joe Taylor recalled one case that stood out at his business, Paw Control Wildlife Solutions in Hiawatha.
“The raccoons … traveled to the basement, came up the stairs and ate from the cat food bowl. (The homeowners) couldn’t imagine this sort of thing could be possible anywhere,” he said. “I had to chuckle a little bit — I hadn’t thought of that one.”
Advertisement
Others who have suffered greater levels of destruction aren’t laughing as much. For wildlife control specialists like Ben Stutzman, raccoon calls have been some of his most memorable with Catch’em Critters in Wellman.
After growing up in the country with a pet raccoon who blended in with his family’s cats, he’s seen the best and worst of the little bandits. Sometimes they break into porches to steal bird feed or set up community latrines on the deck.
Other times their determination puts human engineering to shame. One call early in his career involved a mother raccoon who became separated from the den she had made with her offspring in a house. After returning from an outing, she found her usual vent entrance blocked with plywood by homeowners who thought they could solve the problem on their own.
“She decided she was going to make her own way in,” Stutzman said. So the raccoon started by ripping shingles off the roof where the attached garage met the house. When she found sheeting underneath, she kept going. Eventually, she chewed through metal soffit to be reunited with her young.
“Raccoons are just really tough. They are amazing survivalists,” said Stutzman, who has been running his wildlife solutions business for 11 years. “I’ve seen where they chewed through 2-by-4 studs to go laterally through a wall.”
Raccoon population surges
With the raccoon population in Iowa nearly tripling since 2006, more and more homeowners are becoming privy to raccoon stories of their own.
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In 2006, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources counted 2,417 raccoons in its nocturnal surveys in all of Iowa’s 99 counties. This year, it counted 6,486 — a surge of over 268 percent in the last 16 years, and an increase of 23 percent in the last year alone, despite localized outbreaks of fatal canine distemper virus.
County data shows Benton and Iowa counties with some of the highest counts in the state. More urban counties, like Linn and Johnson, tend to have lower counts.
From 2019 to 2020, Joe Taylor’s Paw Control Wildlife Solutions saw a 52 percent jump in calls for raccoons. Along with a bigger spike this fall than previous years, the overall raccoon call increase has been sustained through the last three years for his business.
Each year, Paw Control fields over 100 calls for raccoons and captures hundreds of them.
Stutzman’s more rural business hasn’t seen a noticeable increase in raccoon-specific calls, but he’s heard from others who have attracted hundreds of raccoons in their corn patches. Raccoons make up about 25 percent of his calls.
“The last two years, I’ve heard astronomical numbers from those (corn patches),” he said. “So I know the population is up and doing well.”
Open season
State Rep. Dean Fisher, a Tama County Republican representing House District 72, knows the devastation of losing sweet corn to raccoons. After years of losing sweet corn just before harvest, he started hearing from constituents suffering high-dollar damage.
One farmer, he said, suffered $10,000 in damage to a combine when he started it after a raccoon climbed inside. Another found dozens of raccoons in a cattle feeder.
He hopes stalled legislation, which he intends to file again in the next session, will help farmers who believe the Iowa DNR’s current allowances for killing nuisance animals aren’t enough.
“You can’t be out there 24 hours to see when one of these critters would get into your field,” he said. “You have to eradicate them in your area beforehand, get preventive steps to thin the population before damage even starts.”
One state legislator says he’s had enough of Iowa’s raccoons
With the population at a 17-year high, some say new solutions are needed as raccoons ravage urban residences and farms alike.
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