Thursday morning 3:00 a.m. I'm awake as usual. I hear what sounds like someone doing a cannon ball into the pond. Run downstairs look out the french doors..see nothing. Flip on the lights and swing open the door! Nothing, but I notice big wet spots leading out of the pond, up to the patio and back around to the back of the yard. As I'm walking to the back of the yard I hear a strange noise coming from the Mesquite tree and there is this huge raccoon looking at me as he's clawing/slipping his way down the tree. I freaked! I'm sure he did too. We both ran in different directions. He must have been leaning over the pond and fell in. Looks like all my fish are there.
A week earlier I was checking on my water poppies that I have in a terra cotta pot in the stream. I have had them for several years. The pot was empty, the entire plant - root ball....everything gone. Now it makes sense, stupid raccoon. A raccoon in my yard? I looked for my water poppies today and found them at the end of the stream the whole rootball/plant upside down. Potted it back up. A lot of the leaves had been chewed on.
I wonder if he was a pet that got loose. He was really large. Clearly had not missed any meals.
Seriously? A raccoon?
Wow! That is freaky! Wonder where he came from and where he lives now. If people have dog or cat doors, bet he will find them and be inside eating pet food!
Do you have a golf course or greenbelt area nearby?
Susie
nope, no greenbelt, no golf course. There is what is left of a dry wash about 1/2 a mile a way. I certainly hope he doesn't figure out Jaz's door. We're talking mass hysteria.
You probably should put out a live trap and catch it before it gets used to coming to your yard. They are mean and destructive and not afraid of living around humans. We had a major problem with them. Our closest open area is Stone Creek Golf course, about a mile away. We had a neighbor down on Sweetwater who was leaving out food for the neighborhood cats and inadvertently feeding the raccoons.
Raccoons were the main reason we took out our big pond. They were eating snails and whatever else they could catch, and had started defecating at pond's edge. Ewwww!
We accidentally caught one when we had a live trap out to catch a cat. One p*ssed-off 'coon!
They can be a real problem for small dogs.
Not trying to add more to the hysteria...My neighbor said raccoon took all their pond fish. They have a small pond and their backyard faces golf course (7th st/thunderbird area). That was the first time I heard someone mention raccoon in my area.
Hope your fish is ok.
Yeah, they caught everyone of my neighbor's Koi, too. She wasn't happy!
I'm hoping he was just passing through :(
The sides of my pond are straight up and down, no way for him to wade in (thus the falling in) The fish are semi dormant right now and at the bottom of the pond.
Fishie, I am so glad that your fishies are OK and that they did not end up as raccoon snack.
Year ago, you had a ringtail in our yard and was playing with our water feature and ruined my plants. I guess he/she was going for the two gold fish that resided there at the time. Both of them were smart enough to hide. lol