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Location
Mount Berry, GA
Start Date
25-3-2013 12:00 AM
Description
According to surveys of wildlife control operators (WCO), problems with raccoons (Procyon lotor) consistently rank among the top complaints for property owners. Among the more serious behaviors of female raccoons is their propensity to invade human-occupied structures to raise young. Distressed property owners frequently respond using lethal means, either on their own or through hiring WCOs. Even if live-captured and legally released, the handling of raccoons may result in injuries and potentially cause females to abandon young. Eviction fluids, developed in the early 1990s, are designed to smell like a male raccoon and therefore cause a nursing raccoon to leave the den with her young. Wildlife control operators use eviction fluid primarily to evict a female and her young from an inaccessible location. Though the precise formulas are not disclosed by manufacturers, the fluids consist of the glands and urine of male raccoons coupled with a preservative. We evaluated the efficacy of 2 raccoon eviction fluids to evict female raccoons with young from chimneys. Though our sample size was small (n =15), we found that eviction fluids merit further investigation as a viable non-lethal repellent for raccoons in human-occupied structures.
Recommended Citation
Vantassel, S. M., Hygnstrom, S. E., & Hiller, T. L. (2013). Efficacy of two raccoon eviction fluids. In Gallagher, G. R. & Armstrong, J. B. (Eds.), The Fifteenth Wildlife Damage Management Conference (pp. 108-112). Mount Berry, GA: Berry College.
Included in
Efficacy of Two Raccoon Eviction Fluids
Mount Berry, GA
According to surveys of wildlife control operators (WCO), problems with raccoons (Procyon lotor) consistently rank among the top complaints for property owners. Among the more serious behaviors of female raccoons is their propensity to invade human-occupied structures to raise young. Distressed property owners frequently respond using lethal means, either on their own or through hiring WCOs. Even if live-captured and legally released, the handling of raccoons may result in injuries and potentially cause females to abandon young. Eviction fluids, developed in the early 1990s, are designed to smell like a male raccoon and therefore cause a nursing raccoon to leave the den with her young. Wildlife control operators use eviction fluid primarily to evict a female and her young from an inaccessible location. Though the precise formulas are not disclosed by manufacturers, the fluids consist of the glands and urine of male raccoons coupled with a preservative. We evaluated the efficacy of 2 raccoon eviction fluids to evict female raccoons with young from chimneys. Though our sample size was small (n =15), we found that eviction fluids merit further investigation as a viable non-lethal repellent for raccoons in human-occupied structures.