It's a big problem this time of year. Last spring Adams cared for and released about three dozen raccoons. For an insight into just how wide-ranging is her particular dilemma, Adams suggests a talk with any local game warden. Thus, people are more apt to destroy the big coon that alarms the dog, raids the cellar, overturns the trash can each night. I don't think it's been to an advantage, in a way.
People are ignorant of the fact that the mother has to go away and get food.
They just assume the babies are abandoned. Although Adams has cared for the young of skunks, deer, porcupines, and other indigenous land mammal species, she finds our misguided baby-saving instincts pertain chiefly to raccoons and squirrels. Her arms full of her own babies, she'd intended to forward this year's bundles of fur to the other Wildlife Rehab. But there's been an early recurrence of past trends. Then it's just a matter of transferring that common-sense instinct to the dooryard raccoon.