canadian hunter312
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Brant County
Just a heads up for those who hunt with dogs in the area...
Yesterday while travelling between hunting locations I came upon a large raccoon in the middle of a gravel road that didn't seem "right". The animal didn't run away like they normally do and when I stopped beside the animal it started walking slowly towards my vehicle stopping about 2ft away which allowed me to see that one of it's eyes was totally crusted over with discharge and the other was about 1/4 crusted over and it was breathing heavily. I also noticed plenty of it's tracks in the fresh snow where the animal had been walking aimlessly from side to side of the road and had made quite a few circles and was clearly disoriented.
After returning home I hit up Google and have come to the conclusion that this animal likely has distemper and was in the later stages of the disease and would likely die in the near future. I wanted to dispatch the animal, but I had nothing to use except for my shotgun and had no choice but to let nature take it's course as each side of the road was private property with a few houses on each side of the road and shooting the animal was not worth the risk. If it were public land on either side I would have simply made it enter the property so I could dispatch it without one of the homeowners contacting police.
This is the first time I have ever seen this. How common is it? What would be the best tool for dispatching an animal in this situation where a firearm cannot be used and you don't want to touch the animal?
At the second property about 5kms from the sick coon my dogs treed a coon in the middle of the day which made me extremely nervous as they were within 4 feet of it before it made it to a tree. It appeared healthy, but it's not really normal to see raccoons around noon so I'm wondering if this one was sick too?
Yesterday while travelling between hunting locations I came upon a large raccoon in the middle of a gravel road that didn't seem "right". The animal didn't run away like they normally do and when I stopped beside the animal it started walking slowly towards my vehicle stopping about 2ft away which allowed me to see that one of it's eyes was totally crusted over with discharge and the other was about 1/4 crusted over and it was breathing heavily. I also noticed plenty of it's tracks in the fresh snow where the animal had been walking aimlessly from side to side of the road and had made quite a few circles and was clearly disoriented.
After returning home I hit up Google and have come to the conclusion that this animal likely has distemper and was in the later stages of the disease and would likely die in the near future. I wanted to dispatch the animal, but I had nothing to use except for my shotgun and had no choice but to let nature take it's course as each side of the road was private property with a few houses on each side of the road and shooting the animal was not worth the risk. If it were public land on either side I would have simply made it enter the property so I could dispatch it without one of the homeowners contacting police.
This is the first time I have ever seen this. How common is it? What would be the best tool for dispatching an animal in this situation where a firearm cannot be used and you don't want to touch the animal?
At the second property about 5kms from the sick coon my dogs treed a coon in the middle of the day which made me extremely nervous as they were within 4 feet of it before it made it to a tree. It appeared healthy, but it's not really normal to see raccoons around noon so I'm wondering if this one was sick too?
