Wild Kingdom in Our Backyard

If you refer back to my post from January 23, you can read about the large koi that go missing from our pond each winter. We tried to figure out what was eating them and having such an expensive meal, at our expense! There are so many possible culprits and we never saw anything around the pond. It seems that all the activity happens at night or when we are not watching!




We borrowed a motion sensor camera (that hunters use) from a friend and mounted it to a tree near the pond. Then each morning we would review the pictures to see what happened during the night, or during the day while we were at work.


We captured images of many interesting critters, from doves, blue jays, a neighbor's cat at 4 am, a rabbit, squirrels, a couple hawks and finally a raccoon. While a hawk could be a predator, we figured it would not dive into the water. So we are thinking that the raccoon is our man. Plus, the fur on his belly was wet so we know he was wading in the pond.


On March 27, he walked into the live trap that contained fish flavored cat food. Did we actually trap the same raccoon we saw on the camera on March 21? Who knows! There may be a family. We will be setting the trap again to see what happens. We are hoping that we don't catch a skunk by accident. They've been seen in our backyard too!

In the meantime, we hauled our pal Rocky Raccoon to a rural area about 45 minutes from home. Hopefully he will like his new country environment a lot better than our suburban neighborhood! And as for the pond, we will be buying some cheap goldfish this year and will pass on the expensive koi for awhile.