The other night a raccoon apparently entered the trap we set for squirrels (not the first time this has happened). When it was unable to exit in a timely manner, it called in the troops. One must have strapped on his handy tool belt. Next morning, I noticed that the trap was turned around and not where it was left the day before.

I asked the family member if he moved it. He said no. When I tried to reset the trap, an important part of the trapping mechanism didn’t work. As if something took a pair of raccoon pliers and loosened it. When the family member returned from work, he made adjustments, but he failed to take into account the technical expertise of raccoons, especially the ones who go to college on a tools scholarship.

It happened that for the past week, I had been troubled by a pack of squirrels who kept jumping on the bird feeding table. I then placed the big trap right under this table. Caught one, waited to catch the other two. And that evening was the night of the raccoon gathering.

After the human adjusting, I baited the trap the next day. Sometime in the afternoon, the loud metallic sound of the trap was heard, which tends to make me leap up almost like the squirrel does. I looked, and indeed, there was one of the gray squirrels. Usually, I put a towel, tarp or some such over the trap, which calms the animal down till it is deposited in parklands not close to here. I neglected to do this because I had a lot of work.

When I got up to get a tarp, the trap looked empty. Sometimes, if the angle is right and the squirrel is crouched in the corner eating the walnuts in there, it can look empty. But no, this time, it was really empty, and the squirrel was pausing at the open door, seconds from entering the house.

Part of the trap door had been loosened in such a way as to be undetected by mere humans. But the raccoons had figured out a way to let the next animal get loose on its own.

I bow to their superior intelligence in matters of the trap.