Putnam: East Lansing neighbors on their own to deal with strangely behaving raccoon

EAST LANSING – It took a village, and a private contractor, to tackle a raccoon behaving strangely in the Flowerpot neighborhood last week.

Though neighbors feared the animal was sickened by rabies, it was more likely distemper, the same contagious disease that spawned an outbreak of “zombie raccoons” in Youngstown, Ohio, in April. Distemper caused the animals to rear on their hind legs and bare their teeth, unafraid of humans.

Even though residents of the neighborhood near Michigan State University’s campus feared for their safety, they were turned away when they asked for help from East Lansing police and Ingham County Animal Control.

East Lansing Police Lt. Chad Connelly says that shouldn’t have happened. He said police should respond to such calls. 

Who's in charge?

After hearing about the raccoon from a colleague, Tovah Olson, I wondered just who should be in charge of capturing or killing a sick animal that poses a risk?

If you lived on a farm, you’d probably just shoot the raccoon (no hunting license or permit required). But I have to agree that we pay a lot of taxes to live in a city and expect — and usually get — good services.

Also, just so we’re clear, it’s illegal to discharge a firearm in East Lansing city limits.

The sick raccoon saga unfolded around 5:30 p.m. June 11 when Victoria Solomon spotted the animal on a fence behind her Lilac Avenue home. It was shaking and unafraid of people. She has a small yard and two children, ages 4 and 7.

“The raccoon was 10 feet away from them, having a stare down. I was concerned about their safety,” Solomon said.

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Her husband, Austin Kaufmann, called the police. He said he was told there’s an officer who could deal with animals but he wasn’t on duty.

The family saw the raccoon again two hours later and then, after dark, Kaufmann found it scratching on a basement window. “Creepy!” he told neighbors on Next Door, a social media site for neighborhoods.

Kaufmann said he planned to call animal control the next day, but the raccoon was gone.

Spotted again

The next morning on June 12, though, Olson spotted a raccoon with similar behavior in her yard on Marigold Avenue, one street over from Kaufmann and Solomon’s.

She called police and was told to call animal control. When she called Ingham County Animal Control, she said, she was told they don’t deal with wildlife.

John Dinon, director of Ingham County Animal Control, said Michigan law gives oversight of wildlife to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Animal control has authority over domesticated animals, he said.

Most wildlife calls to his office concern baby animals that appear to be abandoned but are likely not.

“In the spring, we get quite a few. All the animals are having their babies, and people incorrectly assume those babies are in trouble,” he said.

But DNR spokesman Ken Silfven said the state agency often refers calls to local animal control offices around the state.

“Our advice: if a property owner is faced with a situation such as you describe, it’s best to contact the local animal control agency. If it’s something the agency won’t handle or isn’t equipped to handle, then call the DNR’s Report All Poaching (RAP) line at 800-292-7800. It’s a 24/7 hotline that you can call or text,” he said in an email.

He said conservation officers will visit the property, and it’s best to leave sick animals to professionals.

Remove standing water

Finally, after the sickly, shaking raccoon moved on to Olson’s neighbor’s yard, Suzy Knezek called Critter Control, and the company removed it. Knezek warned the grateful neighbors that it was likely distemper and that neighbors should remove any standing water in their yards to keep it from spreading to pets.

I couldn’t reach her or Critter Control to ask about the costs, but Olson said another company quoted her a $200 fee to place a live trap.

Solomon, the East Lansing woman who originally spotted the raccoon, expressed surprise that animal control didn’t take on the case.

“I don’t know what animal control is for if they don’t trap distempered raccoons in your back yard. I don’t understand if that’s not their purview,” she said.

Ingham County Health Department spokeswoman Amanda Darche said the health department is concerned about rabies but will intercede only after a human or pet has been bitten by an animal or fears they’ve been exposed to a bat while sleeping.

Checking off the list of agencies I could think of that might respond, that left only the East Lansing Police Department.

Connelly said that unless police are responding to a bigger emergency, they should respond to a potentially rabid raccoon in a yard.

He said he checked the times those calls came in, and nothing was recorded or sent on to officers. He said cadets cover the nonemergency line and apparently didn’t pass the calls along. He said he will speak to them.

He apologized. Bigger city departments often can’t respond in a timely way to every call, even to crimes such as breaking and entering, he said. But not in East Lansing, Connelly contends. 

“We will generally try to respond to almost every call for service that we get,” he said.

Judy Putnam is a columnist with the Lansing State Journal. Contact her at (517) 267-1304 or at jputnam@lsj.com. Follow her on twitter @judyputnam