A couple of raccoons and a bear made for an interesting Sunday morning for City of New Westminster bylaw officers.
Along with responding to calls about a black bear in the Quayside neighbourhood, animal control services also fielded calls about injured raccoons in two New West neighbourhoods on May 30. (You can read about the bear’s visit here.)
“It was quite the morning,” said Phil Greene, a bylaw officer with the city. “It’s not usually that crazy on a Sunday morning. Usually it’s the mundane things that happen.”
While it’s common for animal control services to attend calls about wildlife, Sunday’s calls about injured raccoons related to somewhat unusual locations in New West.
“One of the raccoons had fallen three floors from a garden on top of the building and landed on a glass awning above a restaurant,” Greene noted.
While it was difficult for the raccoon to get down from the awning in front of El Santo on Columbia Street, Greene said it managed to do just that.
“How he got down, I don’t know. We were tied up with the bear. By the time we got up to El Santo, we took a look around – and he had gone. He got down somehow. If he was able to get down, he very likely wasn’t hurt,” he said. “Certainly today and tomorrow we will be watching that block to see if there are any reports of any injured raccoons. Chances are it will be him.”
Alejandro Diaz, owner of El Santo, took to Facebook on Saturday in search of advice on how to help a raccoon down from the awning in front of his restaurant.
“We left some chips for him or her before we left to see if that could motivate him to come down,” Diaz said. “City came next morning but he was already gone as well as the chips. We don’t know how he came down, it was very cool to see how many people tried to help and give him space at the same time, as he was scared but hungry too.”
Greene said it’s likely the raccoon made its way up to a garden on the residential building, before falling onto the awning below.
“A lot of the trees along Columbia do touch buildings,” he noted. “The raccoons can very easily can travel from the ground, up a tree, across a branch onto a roof of a commercial building or a house.”
That same morning, the city received a call from someone who had been passing by Royal Columbian Hospital and spotted a raccoon that seemed to have an injured tail.
“We saw him at the hospital. He was actually very active. His tail was damaged and it looked like he’d lost some hair – he might have got it caught in something. There was some blood but it was a fairly old injury. All his legs worked well,” Greene told the Record. “He was quite the little chatterer. He took off into some brambles down near the hospital. I think he’s fine. He will be OK.”
Greene said raccoons are “little survivors,” but injured raccoons can be taken to Critter Care Wildlife Society in Langley for rehabilitation.
“The bylaw covers every single animal in New West, including wildlife,” he said. “We have rescues that take wild birds. We have one in Langley that takes mammals. We have snake rescues, if we get snakes or caimans; occasionally we get caimans. And even fish. They all have to be taken care of. Often they are abandoned, or there is a cruelty investigation involved and they are seized. We have somebody for everyone.”
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