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Friends of the Cawthra Bush & Greater Mississauga Area
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Scanned, recopied or Internet copy, if there are errors, please e-mail me with corrections: Opening
comments: More at the end. Toronto Star - Aug 15, 1993, - pg.# G6
[STARSHIP - SU2 Edition] Baby raccoon gets helping hand [Illustration] Deep in Mississauga, among subdivisions and highrises, is a forest. In this forest nestles Winding Lane Wildlife Sanctuary. It's been there for 30 years - owned and run by Bernice Inman-Emery. Two hundred different types of birds as well as chipmunks, deer, raccoons and skunks have found sanctuary with her. Today Inman-Emery is looking after a 5-week-old raccoon. Wrapped in blankets and surrounded by bottles filled by hot water, it was sleeping peacefully in a box in her living room until it heard her. Dinner time! It climbs all over her, desperately looking for food. At last the bottle is warm and the raccoon is tucked into her arm, sucking madly at the milk. Inman-Emery feeds it four times a day, giving it her own special formula. Later on it will go on to strained beef, baby food and eggs. The raccoon spills a fair bit of the milk and Inman-Emery has to stop to wipe its face. It makes a sound quite like the sound a cat makes. Inman-Emery calls it a "churr" rather than a "purr." Normally the mother would clean and rub the baby and Inman-Emery has to do just the same. She rubs it with the towel and keeps its fur nice and fluffy. This baby is a female and it has been here for two weeks. Its mother was killed by a car and some children found the baby being chased by a dog. It looks so cute and cuddly, I ask Bernice if raccoons can be kept as pets. "Never," she says firmly. "They are wild animals and should be in the wild. It's cruel to make them into pets and besides . . . they don't make good pets. They bite." "What should someone do if they find an injured raccoon? Or a baby raccoon?" She cleans up the baby. Lucky she has a towel on her lap. Pity they don't have diapers for raccoons. "If it's hurt badly, they should have it put to sleep. But if it has just broken its leg or something like that, then they should be kept safe and away from pets and animals and they will heal themselves. I've had many raccoons heal themselves." "I guess it's a bit like baby birds." "Exactly! Leave baby birds alone. The mother could well find them again." There's a knock at the door. She gets up with the baby in her arms. It's a man with an injured dove. I offer to feed the baby. It's all feet and mouth. It cuddles up in the way a kitten or puppy does. It nibbles and chews my finger every now and then when it gets bored with the bottle. Inman-Emery doesn't look happy. "Cats!" she exclaims. "Well, of course, I have my own cat but she's well-trained. Cats shouldn't be allowed out between April and June - during the time that birds have babies." She deals with the dove by putting it into a cage. "We'll watch him and see what happens. It makes me mad." I hand back the raccoon and it seems quite stuffed. She cleans it up again and settles it into the box. "What will happen to it?" "It'll have to be trained to hunt. How to turn over stones looking for bugs. Fish for crayfish . . . that kind of thing. They need a group to live with. By the end of the summer, they can look after themselves." "But why does it seems that we see so many raccoons abandoned?" "Well, we have cut down the trees. They have to find somewhere to nest. We have chimneys without guards and they get into chimneys or garages or eaves. The mother goes out to hunt and when she comes home the babies make so much noise that people think they are in pain and call the pest control or interfere themselves." The parrot yells. Bernice tells me that it makes just the same sound as she does when she calls raccoons to her so sometimes a raccoon will run to the parrot. "What else do you do as well as running the sanctuary?" "I write mystery stories about animals. Write for nature magazines. Give lectures. That kind of thing." Eventually I find out that she has the Order of Ontario, that she won the Mississauga short fiction contest in 1991 and that she is involved in everything to do with animals and nature. "What made you do all this?" I ask her. She gently strokes the sleeping raccoon. "I think there is no point in saying you love animals if you don't do something to protect them. I have to do something about my love for them." PLEEASSE SIGN OUR PETITION It will make a difference! Home page - Main Table of Contents - Back up a Page - Back to Top [COMMENTS BY DON B. - ] |
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