How To Kill a Raccoon

When you encounter a wild animal in your home, your first instinct is to act defensively and get it out, with any means necessary. Right? Your family is at danger - your household cat or dog, the kids who are running around just one room away, your wife, you… These animals - animals just like the rogue raccoon you have come face to face with, they carry diseases such as rabies, and they’ll bite and scratch if cornered. You need a way to deal with the situation IMMEDIATELY. If not sooner.

Most people decide to kill a pest that has entered their home, whether it’s a mosquito, a stray squirrel, or maybe just a small bat, and although this is one way of dealing with the problem, it’s not exactly considered to be the best way. These animals, as annoying as they might be to you, are essential for the ecosystem around us, and it isn’t fair to kill it just because it has accidentally wandered into your property and set up house.

Nine times out of ten, a female raccoon will stray into your attic or similar places to find a spot to rear her babies. She wants somewhere that will keep them warm, dry and safe, and no one ever goes into your attic, so it provides the perfect solution. The fact that the mother raccoon created all sorts of havoc as she clambered her way is neither here nor there. She doesn’t mean to do that - she just wants access where there is a steady supply of food, and somewhere warm and dry to keep her young safe.

You see, a wild animal doesn’t just come onto your land or into your house to make a nuisance of itself - it enters because it has a purpose. In much the same way that you just want somewhere safe to live and start a family, the raccoon wants exactly that too. When it knocks the garbage can over, it’s just trying to get to some food inside. You see, animals like the raccoon are dumb when it comes to food, and because it can be so hard to come by, they will often put themselves at risk just to get to it, even going as far as getting hit by a car whilst trying to get to roadkill in the middle of the road.

When you take that into consideration, it doesn’t really seem fair that you are currently typing into Google “how to kill a raccoon”, does it?

Could you really euthanize an animal like that? In cold blood?
Let’s take a look at how to kill a raccoon, and you’ll soon start to get an idea for how much harder this might be than you first thought…

How To Kill a Raccoon
This is a pretty big animal, so any method of killing is going to need to be something serious, intense, and works for the first time. Body traps for example, are often first used. In much the same way as a mouse trap works, the animal is snapped into place by a mechanism in the trap that the critter sets off. It is designed to kill the animal right away, so that it doesn’t have to suffer but nine times out of ten, these traps are set by people that aren’t entirely sure what they are doing, and doesn’t actually destroy the animal as quickly as you may have hoped. Occasionally it might just catch the leg of the animal, leaving it there to starve to death, or to get attacked by other animals. You are leaving it vulnerable to the elements and everything else life in the wild has to offer, and that’s not really a nice thing to do. Plus, if there are babies somewhere, you won’t have a hope in hell’s chance of finding them once you’ve killed the mother, and then you’ll have an even bigger problem on your hands.

What about poison? This is often one of the first results when you look up how to kill a raccoon but once again, you should probably be aware of how inhumane this method is. Firstly, you won’t be able to guarantee that you are actually poisoning the animal you want to poison, at times accidentally killing the next door neighbor’s cat. Secondly, what happens if the animal ingests the poison and then crawls somewhere deep in your house to die? That stench is not going to be pretty once the summer comes, and you’re going to really regret making that decision.

Catching in cage traps and then drowning seems to be another method that often fails miserably so it’s probably best to avoid that too, and although using a knife or shooting is often considered to be the most humane method, these come with their fair share of issues too, including the legalities.

In most states, it is illegal to kill a number of wild animals, raccoons being just one of them. In fact, in some states, it is even illegal to trap the animal unless you are going to kill it straight away afterwards and once again, that comes with its legalities and legislation too. In short, it’s always a great idea to seek advice from a professional who will know EXACTLY what to do, and the best ways to do it too!

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