Yes, let’s do everything we can to make the world a more thoroughly rotten place.
“Sir, we’ve received reports that you are in possession of an animal species that is known to be a scavenger, which has a tendency to raid neighborhood garbage cans, which can potentially open doors and latches, which can attack without provocation using claws and teeth, and which can act as a host to a number of communicable diseases including rabies.”
“Yes sir, I am, but I don’t understand why you’re so concerned about my dog.”
Stupid is as stupid does. He knows he’s got a pet that’s illegal, but chooses to brag it all over the place. Gimme a break.
What a Cyril Sneer.
Yeah, where was little Rebekah happiest?
That should be factored in, right?
Knowing raccoons, that would be anywhere there’s fresh garbage.
Sad… I see this was posted by CNN less than a month ago: http://youtu.be/gbNh_Vea2xg
The animal control folks should count themselves lucky it wasn’t a skunk with armament intact. People have certainly kept them as pets; I think I’ve heard the term “woods kitties” used to refer to them.
… On the one hand, there are rules against domesticating wildlife, and good reasons for them. On the other hand, once domesticated, returning her to the wild really isn’t a Good Idea.
So he’s likely to be fined, but I’d flip a coin on whether she’ll be zoo’ed or returned to him on condition that she be neutered and otherwise appropriately vetted (in particularly, she Really Should be getting rabies vaccine),
A lot will depend on how he acquired her. If it was a matter of rescuing a kit after her mother was killed, the authorities are more willing to look the other way. I have a friend who reports having had a pet bobcat – but they went to the authorities first to get permission, and since he was a male of a more threatened species it was easier to argue that having him remain in the area and unfixed might help maintain that population.
[As a kid, I went to an Audibon Society camp. One year they had a trio of raccoon kits that had been rescued and whom they were trying very hard NOT to acclimate to humans. Us kids were told to keep some distance between us and the cage, and only one staff member – who knew exactly what he was doing – was allowed to interact with them. He worked hard to remain threatening, and in particular to make sure they didn’t associate him with food. Both difficult; they’re bright, and they are unbearably cute.]
Who’s your favorite possum?
Lester!
Lets not forget Dude, that keeping wildlife, um… an amphibious rodent, for… um, ya know domestic… within the city… that ain’t legal either.
I know it is wrong too bust you in the chops for saying disparaging things, yet I am willing too do so.
I agree having the pet seen by a vet and vac’d, also licensed would be the proper approach. Yet, living rural, most let nature takes its way, which is unnatural too most urbanites.
Problem was making Rebekah’s location known too the general public. Urbanites are disconnected from the earth and their surroundings. Of course the reason for that disconnection is the chase for the carrot on a stick, but I degrees.
OMG, so 80’s. My old man did the audio engineering for that. WOW. I … well, … He will like knowing it was mentioned but not care a lot. All thought he will likely still be receiving SOCAN royalties for it.
Domesticating wildlife takes some more time, “taming” would be more appropriate.
But it looks to me as if Racoons could be domesticated at least as fast as foxes.
Aside from a single desert variety (fennecs), foxes are notoriously difficult to actually “domesticate”, with the only case I’m aware of being a Russian breeder who spent something like 30+ years carefully breeding something like a half dozen generations to produce what were still only somewhat tractable animals.
I find 30 years to be exceedingly fast, considering that wolves and cats probably domesticated themselves.
What are you, a fucking park ranger now?
Nothin’ wrong here. A man and his 'coon. Had one m’self as a kid. Slept in my bed. With me.
The difference, I suppose, is scale. Wolves and cats domesticated themselves en masse because they lived around and with humanity en masse, but domesticating foxes in anything like sufficient numbers to sustain the new “breed” would require a massive cooperative effort from many breeders for several decades.
Try giving someone else a break first, maybe you’ll get one in return. 
