Wildlife rescue trains abandoned raccoon kits in survival skills

Woodside Wildlife Rescue in Pass Christian, Mississippi, runs what its staff call a raccoon boot camp for sick or injured kits that have lost their mothers or been separated from them after storms, traffic collisions or other traumatic events. The aim is to teach the young animals survival skills they would normally learn from their mothers.

Founder Paula Woodside opened the rescue in 2019 after helping rehabilitate a baby raccoon found aboard her ship while she was a U.S. merchant mariner. The centre typically raises dozens of kits each year, alongside other native wildlife, and has taken in 76 raccoon kits so far this year. Animal control officers and residents contact Woodside or director Raquel Priest when they find a raccoon needing help. Staff try to reunite kits with their mothers when possible; otherwise, they bring them to the rescue.

The youngest kits are bottle-fed indoors for several weeks until they have been vaccinated against diseases carried by cat colonies and dogs and can move to outdoor pens. Later, they are allowed to roam during the day on the rescue’s rural 20-acre (8-hectare) property, which includes meadows, dense forest, ponds and a nearby river.

Woodside and Priest demonstrate how to dig for worms and open pine cones or acorns for seeds. They use a high trilling sound that imitates a raccoon danger call to send the kits up trees, while a short whistle signals that it is safe. The animals also practise fishing in shallow pools, swimming in the pond and moving through deep woods from tree to tree to avoid birds of prey, snakes and other ground-level threats. A live quail hunt gives them hunting experience.

For their final lesson, a volunteer who is not Woodside or Priest traps the raccoons in cages to encourage them to avoid traps and people. When kits are ready for release, usually about six months after rescue, staff hold a graduation ceremony, play Edward Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance Marches,” call each animal’s name and have a reverend bless their journey before releasing them in another forested section of the property. Staff also hold a ceremony to bless and scatter the ashes of kits that die in care.