Last weeks column invited some great comments. One was from Sheila Ireland who gave me much food for thought, and thank you Sheila for that inspiration. Her comment was on raccoons. I did some digging and found that the raccoon range is quite extensive.

The areas raccoons haven’t made their presence known is Northern BC, all three of the Territories, and Newfoundland and Labrador.

The reasons I didn’t think they were residents of the Okanagan is because in all my years of living by Park Rill we did not see any sign of them nor was there any road kill to be had. We saw porcupines, skunks and muskrats as well as the evidence of beaver but nary a one of raccoon.

Our chicken pen was raided by a hawk, the odd cat and stray dogs, but never by a raccoon, that we know of.

Having not read the book by HJ Parham, I don’t know the reference to the raccoon issue. This I know about raccoons, they are great scavengers and love a free meal. They aren’t even very good mousers, although they would never pass up a mouse nest.

They don’t dig their own dens but take over an abandoned den from a previous tenant.
They prefer dens in trees as found in cities with clusters of large deciduous trees. One such city with a uniquely similar climate to Oliver is Walla Walla Washington where it was common to see a raccoon lumbering down a sidewalk at dusk or dawn.

If more of Oliver’s trees were clusters of 100 year old Maples, then more raccoons would be seen in the community with dens in those trees.

Carleton MacNaughton was right in displaying the raccoons in his zoo and I am wrong for assuming that because I didn’t see them at Park Rill, they didn’t exist.

On a different subject. I have come upon some information because of someone close to me. The company known as Stanfield Mining Group is restructuring. For all those interested in getting more information about this there is a web site, www.smginfo.com.

email: ruralreportwithlairdsmith@gmail.com