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LET ME IN! The snarling, garbage-fattened raccoon has attached itself to your screen door with the claws of all four legs and is attempting to shake it loose from the hinges. She and her family have already spent weeks terrorizing your cat, pillaging the dog food from your porch, rifling your trash cans, and peering at you and your spouse in the privacy of your bedroom. Now this fearless urban marauder is interrupting your summer dinner party and alarming your guests. She's big, she's mean, she's chattering like a banshee, and she has evil red glowing eyes like embers from Hell.
What to do?
That's the dilemma Seattle-area residents increasingly face as the boundary between wilderness and populace becomes blurred.
Now that we've started putting Canada geese to death—3,500 killed this summer alone—for the crime of pooping on lawns, the question becomes: What about the many other nuisance species afflicting our comfortable urban lives? When are they going to get what's coming to them?
Surely you can recall your last unwanted encounter with our local urban wildlife: The lugubrious possum frozen in your headlights, hissing and gaping its toothy snout. The foot-long rat scurrying behind the dryer in your basement. The neighbor's pet ferret that's somehow entered your apartment and nested in your sock drawer. The frenzied, hyperactive squirrels screeching from your attic. The bats in your executive gubernatorial mansion. The pigeons shitting on the freshly detailed paint job of your new A4. The crows swooping down to dive-bomb your child's stroller at Green Lake. The coyote dashing across your lawn with the family cat in its mouth.
Resurgent wild critters are learning to live—and live well—in our manicured yards and bountiful neighborhoods. The greenbelt is their avenue of transport, the tipped-over garbage can their preferred place of repast.
Longtime Seattle residents remember when shooting and trapping squirrels and other varmints was commonplace. In the Depression era '30s, such backyard hunting was both for sport and food. These days, frontier mores have given way to a more squeamish attitude. Our liberal biases against guns, and for animals, mean we don't want to see armed men mowing down Bambi on the Olmsted boulevards or witness hunting dogs treeing bears in Seward Park.
But what sort of protection do these meddlesome hairy pests have, and what are your rights as a property owner to address the problem when these unruly beasts get out of line?
Overprotected species
The laws governing urban animals are a patchwork of jurisdictional territory. The feds were in charge of the Canada goose dilemma because those waterfowl are—at least theoretically—a migratory species, crossing state and international boundaries. (Though, lately, these birds can hardly be roused to cross Eastlake Avenue—hence the problem.)
Most other wildlife issues fall under the purview of the state. Cities and counties are generally charged with keeping track of dogs, cats, and bunnies. Newer, alternative pets, such as ferrets, snakes, pigs and reptiles, also fall into the latter category, and, notwithstanding applicable city codes, should not be allowed out of your Capitol Hill apartment under any circumstance.
It should come as no surprise that in a state where ranching and farming have historically taken up a good part of the land mass, our laws are pretty lenient when it comes to defending against four-legged intruders damaging your crops or other property. According to state codes, the property owner and the owner's immediate family, tenants, or employees are all free to trap or kill wild animals and birds that are scarfing your cherries, menacing dogs, or wolfing down chickens. "People can control mammals" that are damaging property, says Steve Dauma, enforcement officer at the State Department of Fish and Wildlife, "so long as the animal isn't protected or endangered, and as long as it isn't a big-game species like a bear, a cougar, a moose."
How do these rules translate to the raccoon family chewing up the crawl space in your Wallingford Craftsman? There's little doubt that the furry masked bandits can be a health hazard and typically cause considerable property damage. "They defecate and urinate all over the place," says Wayne Switzer, a local specialist in nuisance wildlife control, who grew up trapping bobcats and coyotes in Eastern Oregon. "And they carry roundworm. People don't realize—it gets into the air system, all the insulation has to be taken out under biohazard conditions." Two years ago, Switzer hauled four raccoons out of a Bellevue crawlspace. Total clean-up cost for the home: $4,500.
Shooting the critter outright is definitely not an option. Seattle municipal code prohibits discharging a firearm anywhere there's "a reasonable likelihood that humans, domestic animals, or property will be jeopardized."
However, as a practical matter, backyard snipers may plink away at annoying squirrels, possums, crows, and rats with their BB guns. The city isn't likely to impound your Crossman, although neighbors may shun you, your spouse might divorce you, and children may mock your safari attire and pith helmet—and your karma may plummet.
A more effective option is trapping. Here again, stickling city codes give you pause. City of Seattle regulations forbid you to "injure, kill, or physically mistreat any animal," to say nothing of the prohibitions against animal cruelty. You also are not permitted to "set any bait or trap, except for rats or mice" without first seeking permission.
