Raccoon encounters

Amateurs compared to Brushtailed Possums

😏 I was thinking they sounded similar. Don’t know of them attacking dogs, tho ?

However, it was a quoll that stole a lot of gear from me one night- and liked the taste of the cnoc bladder. Snarled at me and kept coming back.

Hard to be angry at a quoll. Raccoons might be easier (to be angry at)

I once was cowboy camping with a few friends around a fire pit. After it went out, I noticed a large racoon walking around our camp. Everything was secured so no real issues.

I’ve had a few mice encounters that taught me to haphazardly pack up and move 100ft or more if wildlife keep coming back. I realized I’m not going to sleep well, if I keep being hypersensitive to any noise as I wait for it to return. The worse time was when 2 were tag teaming.

The worse experience I had was the very habituated aggressive foxes on Santa Cruz Island (Channel Islands NP) where you have to camp in a your designated spot. I was grateful for the metal bear boxes and ended up putting everything in. One tried to steal something out of one in the 30 seconds I turned away to grab something else.

Thanks for these interesting posts.

Here’s one I had back in the 1980’s (winter backpacking in Great Smokey Mountains NP).  I was in a zipped up  bivy bag (no tent), on the snow, and was visited by a quiet unknown creature.  It was attempting to  “dig through” the nylon of my bivy bag.  I could hear it breathing…and initially thought it was a stray dog or fox.  This happened  late at night/early morning and each time I would vigorously shake the bivy…and shout at him before he would leave. On it’s 3rd attempt to enter I finally got my flashlight out and was quite surprised at what I saw…a way too curious skunk!  Maybe it was my stinky feet (?)  but he came back several times before he finally left.  I guess I was lucky I didn’t get sprayed.  😳

YMMV

One time I just got to camp on Upper Creek in Pisgah and my buddy said “Hey Walt, your food bag is moving towards the creek” so I check it out and a dang raccoon tore it apart and ate half of my cream cheese.  More recently I was camping in Bald River wilderness and two raccoons pestered me on a tree next to the tent.  Cute buggers.

Another trip I was camped next to Tobe Creek on Warrior’s Passage trail and this fellow came inside my tent vestibule to check me out.

Yikes. Don’t share these stories with newbies; they’ll never go into the woods! I’d worry about rabies, which I believe is on the rise again. This probably isn’t the cause, but I have heard that people are becoming anti vaxx with their pets too. Hope that’s hyperbole and most people aren’t that dumb.

Nuts,  lol. What is that one that got into your vestibule? Skunk?

A rare striped skunk.

I paid that critter $20 to pester you.  Glad I got my money’s worth.

She never bothered me, in fact I left her a pile of english walnuts after I packed up and left camp.  In the morning I checked out a hollow log she was living in and probably had babies in the log so she came in my tent at night to check me out.  Btw, I was in a stealth never-used CS by Tobe Creek.