Asking an American if they've ever seen a Raccoon is like asking a Frenchman if they've ever seen bread

@Tom-ho2lv

Ай бұрын

Well said!

@akita21154

Ай бұрын

Lol, true true

@seantodd8875

Ай бұрын

ROFL true and hilarious comment

@OkiePeg411

Ай бұрын

Usually on the side of the road. 😢 along with skunks.

@rebecca_is_book-hooked

Ай бұрын

Yes 😂

Okay, to answer a couple of your questions: 1. Domesticating raccoons: It has been done, but I think it’s like having a pet gangster. 2. Skunks: “Skunk” is a Native American name for this North American species of a member of the weasel family that occurs on several continents. They secrete some horrible potion from glands in their butts when they feel threatened. And they spray it with force, so you don’t just smell it - you get covered in it. And it’s nice and oily so you can’t easily get rid of it. Not a lot of people are dumb enough to get “skunked” twice. As for the smell, it’s not like poop. It’s more like tear gas. A direct hit from an adult skunk can make you choke, your eyes water - it’s strong stuff. Fortunately, they’re mostly nocturnal, so you have to go to some effort to cross paths with one. We had a skunk living under the front porch of our house once, and it was fine most of the time. We were active in the day, it was active at night. It was only an issue if it got into a fight with another nocturnal animal. Then the skunk fumes were strong enough to wake me out of a sound sleep - on the second floor of the house. 3. Virginia Opossum: Our Friend, the Opossum, is beloved among all right-thinking people in the USA. They are the very definition of “ugly-cute.” They are North America’s only marsupial. They are inoffensive and shy and adorable in behavior if not in looks. They are about the size of a cat, snack on deer ticks, are almost completely immune to rabies, carry their babies on their backs like a mommy-bus, have prehensile tails and forepaws like little hands, and are so sensitive to stress that they literally pass out when frightened, falling into a 10-minute coma at the drop of a hat. It is a sign of good character (imo) to love opossums, and protect and respect them.

@bhalliwell2191

Ай бұрын

🤣 "...like having a pet gangster." Just about fell out of my chair over this one, LOL! And you are, of course, so very right about this. They're cute, but they're far too clever, and far too destructive without intending any malice. And many of them do carry rabies. I love opossums, and I have to disagree that they are "ugly-cute:" I think those faces are as cute as can be. We have one in the neighborhood who shows up from time to time to snag some of the food we put out for the outside cats. If it finds cat food, it eats it and if it doesn't, like last night, it gets itself a drink of water from a big water dish we also keep out for kitties, and it does it without dumping a lot of shrub or tree detritus or even just mud from its paws into the water. Very mannerly! And then it goes on its way. As for respecting them, they may be shy but when pushed to it they know how to use every single one of their 50 (fifty) teeth. And they will---if you leave them no exit and therefore no choice, but I'm sure you're aware of all this. Delighted to meet another opossum lover!

@dmpvip

Ай бұрын

I will add that we don't call them Opossums, but Possums and I have to disagree with you on their cuteness factor. The only thing scarier than walking into your yard late at night and being met with those devil like, glow in the dark eyeballs, is to actually get a look at the creature behind them. They may be beneficial to the environment, but cute they are not.

@bhalliwell2191

Ай бұрын

@@dmpvip I'm not sure if you're addressing this to me, but it seems that you are, so I'm responding. Original commenter *jenfries6417* opined that opossums (that's the real, official name, so using the "O" at the beginning of the word isn't wrong, and since she did, I did, too at least in part to avoid this) are, and I quote, "...the very definition of ugly-cute." Now, we have three opinions expressed: hers, which is "ugly-cute;" mine, which is that their faces are "...cute as can be," and yours, which is that 'possums have "...devil like, glow in the dark eyeballs, ... [and that the creature behind them" well, you didn't say explicitly, only that you don't find them cute. Just for the record, I have come home after full dark, and surprised a 'possum who was dining at the outdoor cats' food dish on the back porch; it abandoned the food, and slipped around past a five-gallon lidded bucket of pasteurized, pelletized poultry manure, and just waited in the darkness (house and I were new to each other at the time, didn't have a back porch light installed then) for me to go indoors. But I could still see its light-colored hindquarters and its tail, so I spoke to it and it dropped over the side of the porch, and disappeared into the neighbor's hedge. Had some 'possum encounters in recent years, too. Always relaxed and rather shy and not looking for trouble. I'm not looking for trouble here, either, but, again just for the record, I'm no more likely to change my mind about 'possums than you are to change yours.

@flowrpeace

Ай бұрын

Pet gangster is exactly the perfect description

@mrnickbig1

Ай бұрын

Raccoons are like a cross between a bear, cat, and monkey. They can be befriended, but make bad pets.

Fun fact from an older (57 years old) American. Benjamin Franklin wanted our National Symbol to be a turkey. The exact bird we eat at our national holiday of Thanksgiving. Crazy. Opossums are not very attractive and fierce looking, but are actually very beneficial animals. They eat ticks and many other pests and don't carry rabies. Unlike raccoons. Respect and love opossums.

@maneatingcheeze

19 күн бұрын

Funner fact, he did not. IIRC Franklin just penned a funny letter to his daughter about the nobility of the turkey and how it should be the national bird over the lazy bald eagle. He did it for a laugh. People confuse the private letter for something more all the time. When he was on the first committee to decided the national seal, he voted for no bird. Subsequent committees decided on using the bald eagle, sealing it as the national bird. So the most we can say is that Franklin wanted no birds at all.

You're not dumb. We don't know what we don't know. Keep being you. I love listening to you talk.

Skunks have a unique but horrible smell. Once you smell it, you will never forget it.

@ViolentKisses87

Ай бұрын

Skunks spray their smell from glands on their anus. Some people have these surgically removed and keep the Skunk as a pet.

@DevlinBlake

Ай бұрын

Beautiful animal though if you can get around the stink.

@TheCsel

Ай бұрын

if it sprays you can smell it hours later and miles away.

@humanbeing1168

Ай бұрын

I love the smell, unless it is freshly sprayed extremely near.

@pacmon5285

Ай бұрын

Don't worry Andre. It was fun watching you learn.

Skunks don't smell like poop. It is a musk smell. If you have a dog that has been freshly sprayed by a skunk, it is so strong it is like tear gas. It so strong it burns your eyes, makes them water.

@KuniiMatsu

Ай бұрын

It's one of those smells that you can't accurately explain, someone has to smell it to understand.

@heaterparker

Ай бұрын

​@@KuniiMatsui would say really strong piss with a hint of rotten garbage lol

@evilproducer01

Ай бұрын

@@KuniiMatsu Definitely!

@Kimmie9553

Ай бұрын

@@KuniiMatsuno, you can say it smells like weed. If they live somewhere where it is legal they will absolutely know the smell lol it can be hard to determine the difference if you live somewhere with an abundance of both!

@digne6502

Ай бұрын

Skunks smell like really BAD body sweat + marijuana. You cannot escape the smell.

In the 1960s due to hunting and pesticides damaging bird eggs, the bald eagle was almost extinct in the USA, you could only see it on the remote coasts and around national parks out west. Even in the 90s it was very very rare to see it in the majority of the States. But the today the population has made a huge recovery. I've even seen them around lakes here in Indiana. I think at its lowest point there were maybe 800 left, and now there are over 300,000 in the United States.

@redvelvetrose

19 күн бұрын

Fun fact: one of those pesticides was called DDT. Very strong stuff, but it caused the eagle’s eggs to have a thin shell that was almost guaranteed to break. But it was also the only pesticide that works on bedbugs. The ban on DDT caused the bedbug population to explode. So the thin shells of eagle eggs led to our current bedbug infestation.

Wiley E Coyote Looney Tunes cartoons: The bird also exists. It is called a greater roadrunner, while not actually blue, it is a lovely bird. Spoiler, They don't eat seeds either, They eat things like insects and lizards etc. I live in the Mojave desert and see them regularly. I love them.

@jessecolson4698

Ай бұрын

Also, the ones we saw when we lived in New Mexico were only about as tall as a mid-calf sock - having grown up in the midwest, I was DEFINITELY surprised!

@rosameryrojas-delcerro1059

Ай бұрын

@@jessecolson4698 Yes, they are not as big as a coyote....

@SuzA8110

Ай бұрын

Do you automatically say "meep-meep" when you see one? I still do that to this day...

@rosameryrojas-delcerro1059

Ай бұрын

@@SuzA8110 Yes, as juvenile as it is, you are not alone in that.

@jessecolson4698

Ай бұрын

@@SuzA8110 Of course! :)

A groundhog is like a hamster only if your hamsters are two feet long. It's actually a large ground squirrel. The smell of a skunk is so strong that I passed over a dead one in my car once, and my car smelled of it for a week. Raccoons are very intelligent and have hands. The US didn't get native monkeys but raccoons sort of fill that nuisance roll in our ecosystem.

@scorpiouk5914

27 күн бұрын

Trash Pandas!

@psymar

24 күн бұрын

them and squirrels

@johnortmann3098

23 күн бұрын

Actually, a lowland marmot, (Marmota monax). Other species of of marmots in NA and Eurasia are mostly confined to high-altitude areas.

@valkyrie1066

20 күн бұрын

" The nuisance role" LOL yes!

@dariusbrock2351

19 күн бұрын

​@@scorpiouk5914 This made me laugh!

As far as I'm aware, many people who keep skunks as pets first have the animal's scent gland removed.

@lightningcat82

Ай бұрын

Many people do this, not just for skunks, but also for other members of the weasel family. Although skunks are the most pungent. Although when my mother was a child, she had a skunk as a pet, and it was not descented.

@DaveAnderson-yb5zt

Ай бұрын

I once lived where a neighbor fed a couple feral cats. I got a laser pointer to play with them from my 2nd story landing. They had no interest in it. There was a skunk and raccoon however, that both enjoyed chasing after the red dot 😂 later discovered some fish would also try to chase after it!

@barbaracabrera207

Ай бұрын

That's right about having a skunk's scent glands removed. Si you can have them as pets. My best friend down the street, in 2nd grade, had a pet skunk. It was usually hiding behind the stove during day. So we seldom saw it. But you'd smell them on drives in the country cuz they'd get hit by a car. And you could smell them for a long way. You never forget that smell. There's nothing I know you can compare that smell to. But NOT poop! But bad! Opossums are the only baby animals that aren't cute. And they don't get cuter as adults. They have a weird rat-like tail they can hang from tree limbs.

@kimveverka2356

Ай бұрын

Opossum really are cute. When threatened they play dead.

@barbaracabrera207

Ай бұрын

@@kimveverka2356 That's true!! I forgot about the "playing dead" part!

For fans of Warner Brothers cartoons, real roadrunners are only the size of a large crow, or small raven, and they can fly well, so coyotes are no real threat to them.

Skunks have two very different smells. If your dog gets skunked, you need to de-skunk it immediately. If you are driving and smell a skunk, it’s completely different - I was in my 30s before I realized that dead skunk smells like pot smoke (I don’t toke, so didn’t make the connection).

There is a bald eagle named Murphy at a sanctuary in Missouri that can't fly because of an injury when he was younger and in 2023 he built a nest and started trying to incubate a rock during the breeding season since he doesn't have a mate. He even had to be put in a separate enclosure due too him chasing away other eagles protectively, the sanctuary got word of an eaglet-(baby eagle) that fell out of a nest and needed a home do they decided to try and see if Murphy would adopt this eaglet and sure enough he did. He raised him till he was old enough to be released back into the wild and they funnily enough named that eagle Rocky. And now Murphy is raising another eaglet that was found orphaned.

@OkiePeg411

Ай бұрын

Awe!!! ❤

@sassylassie3061

Ай бұрын

@@scorchtail6655 He's super vigilant, too.

As an Uber driver in Austin I have a joke for the tourists and may give you an idea of the direction of the smell (not poop). "If you're driving through Austin and you smell a skunk, it might be weed. If you are out in the country and smell skunk, it's definitely weed." i.e. Take the sharp smell of strong MJ and multiply until your eyes water and you can't breathe. That's skunk.

@sammymartin7891

Ай бұрын

The smell of marijuana X1000 plus a little bit of rotten fish.

@user-ii3vn8tn3q

Ай бұрын

Hence the term..skunk-weed And the strains... skunk dawg, afghan skunk, blueberry skunk, pineapple skunk...and so many more!

@jessicamccard9602

Ай бұрын

This! That's what I always equate the smell to.

@regenesteffen2814

29 күн бұрын

If you can't tell the difference then you haven't had a skunk sprayed dog.

People have tried domesticating raccoons, but they tend to be destructive when they're kept indoors. I remember reading an article about scientists who wanted to use raccoons as test subjects because of their intelligence. They had to abandon the study because the raccoons kept breaking out of their cages and making a shambles of the lab.

I live in upstate New York. We’ve had both raccoons and opossums on our porch. South of us there used to be an Army Depot. The grounds were fenced off and deer were trapped inside. Because there was no hunting, when a totally white deer was born, it lived to maturity and bred. We ended up with a population of white deer. Since the depot was decommissioned, parts of the fence have been removed and white deer are now scattered across the area. I guess that one animal native to the US that Louis didn’t mention is the wild turkey. I have had to stop twice to let a flock of wild turkeys cross the road. We even had one in our yard. Bald Eagles were reintroduced into our area several decades ago and now we have a number of them locally.

Opossum are very shy. You want them in your yard. They eat bugs, lots of bugs,especially ticks.

@m2hmghb

Ай бұрын

If you ever trap them they are nightmares to deal with. Had one get into a cat trap and the a hole didn't want to leave.

@ViolentKisses87

Ай бұрын

And they play dead 💀

@josephaniemarcesens9292

Ай бұрын

And they’re ugly 🤢

@budgreen4x4

Ай бұрын

I have one that hangs around, it isn't bothered that I'm out at night or just walks around me and continues on it's way, I've followed it around too, very chill

@markhamstra1083

Ай бұрын

@@m2hmghbSome like a trapped possum. The house where I grew up had a large back porch on a concrete slab. A family of possums once took up residence under the slab. My dog, a wire haired terrier mix, loved to go under the slab and into their den, treating all of us on the other side of the slab to quite an array of snarling, screaming and scuffling, and then she would emerge with bright eyes, bloody face and wagging tail, ready to do it all over again in a couple of days.

Let me tell you all about "domesticated" racoons: the answer is no. I was at a house party once with a bunch of hippies and punk rock people. We're standing on the front lawn, drinking and having a good time, when a hippy comes up to the party with his pet racoon. Naturally, all the hippies and punks say, "aw man, that's a cool pet! What a cute racoon!" and they pet it, and he goes in the house to get a beer. Going inside, the racoon does the first thing you would expect a racoon to do: it finds the bathroom and immediately tips over the trashcan looking for anything to eat. Then it wanders into the kitchen and knocks that trashcan over too. They're great pets if you're homeless. Not so much if you have a house with standing trashcans lol.

@Nicholas_Burmeister

Ай бұрын

Sounds like the people shoulda given the racoon some party snacks! Imagine inviting someone to a party and then forgetting to feed them!

@R.POWELL

Ай бұрын

🤣👍

@ConstantChaos1

Ай бұрын

This raccoon seems to be particularly misbehaved for "domesticated" ones They are still wonderful lil terrors but not that bad usually

@Blondie42

Ай бұрын

Japan has lots of domesticated racoons

@scorpiouk5914

27 күн бұрын

A person I worked with several years ago knew someone with a raccoon. This person, their spouse and young child petted the raccoon. A week or so later, the raccoon went rabid. All of the mentioned people had to get rabies shots.

These are incredibly common animals in the U.S., I literally saw half of this list today when going out for breakfast. I have a raccoon living in my barn, and groundhogs all over the back of the property. White tail deer cut through my property every morning (usually about 15 of them). Possums (Opussum, both spellings are acceptable, just a regional difference) are all over the area too. Only saw a roadkilled one today, but they are a frequent sight. And the Bald Eagle, which is a rare sight in my area, I've only seen about a dozen of them over the years in the wild, but one flew right in front of my car this morning. If I can find my SD card reader, I think I caught it on dashcam, it was really close, so I want that video saved. No mule deer in my area. And while we do have coyotes here, I haven't seen any for a couple of weeks now. Same with skunks, they're around, but mostly nocturnal, so I rarely see them, but you can smell when they're nearby. Skunks smell very bad. I hit one with my car once, it took two weeks of going to the car wash daily to get the smell off it.

@JW-vd4il

Ай бұрын

Where ARE you?!!! Of course I just wonder region. but Wow. We get a bunch of the critters here, occasional hawk. Residential neighborhood in NE, mostly small houses on small lots, some small apt buildings here and there. When I first lived here some wild turkeys would be walking around too. I came from a bigger city sometimes living places with bigger lots but also even tighter than here. So I knew some critters but didn't know what the heck THAT was! 😂 Oh I saw a chicken once just walking down the sidewalk but my guess is he escaped from somebody's yard. I'd also been drinking and hadn't lived here long so I was like WHAT is happening HERE? Because if you saw a picture of my streets, you would not expect anybody having chickens or such a variety of everything I was seeing roaming around! 😂

As a railroader, my run was out in the country. 250 miles, most of it out in the middle of nowhere? The wildlife was spectacular. The peace and solitude was unmatched. I routinely saw bald eagles, deer, possums, raccoons, everything you could possibly imagine? 24/7. That was the best part of my job. Being able to look up in the sky with no lights, and see the Milky Way, watching sunrise and sunsets in all their glory with no light pollution. It was breathtaking at times? I retired July 4th. 30 years. Will never experience that again. It was SO cool? Got stopped onetime, next to a bunch of trees, night time, and hundreds of thousands of lightning bugs were in the trees? It was surreal. Coolest thing I've ever seen.

@craigellis8354

13 күн бұрын

Dude! BNSF engineer Retire 4th of Aug 30 years I can confirm your comments I chased the money my whole career Missouri Texas Oklahoma Illinois Iowa Seattle Canada My engineer seniority traveled with me as long as it was a BN yard. The amount of wildlife we see as an occupation other than a zoo keeper is hard to match Safe travels brother

@broncobra

12 күн бұрын

@@craigellis8354 Engineer for UP. Be careful my brother? You will miss the people. You will miss your job. You will NOT miss the company? It is mindblowing. It is difficult to get used to after 30 years. There is a place in North Platte Ne. called Donna's Office Service that can help deal with all the paperwork invovled for retirement. There are only two companies in the U.S. that offer this. I highly reccomend it. Her name is Julie, Donna was her mom. Julie said she gets railroaders from all over the U.S. that do business with her. RRB was virtually no help, after looking at everything, to me. The other guy that offers this is in Oregon, I think. Just a couple hundred bucks. Well worth it. Maybe save you money you might miss on your own? She does all the paperwork. Once you sign everything, there is no going back to "undo" or "redo" it. It's good to have a professional doing it all for you. Good Luck and God Bless.

@broncobra

12 күн бұрын

@@craigellis8354 My comments keep getting deleted? Donnas Office Supply in North Platte Ne can help you with retirement paperwork. Highly reccomended from RR all across the US.

@broncobra

12 күн бұрын

@@craigellis8354 Good Luck and God Bless.

@broncobra

12 күн бұрын

@@craigellis8354 Look into Donnas Office Supply In North Platte Ne for help on retirement stuff? Well worth it. Only 2 companies in the us that offer this?

This is your advanced English lesson for today. You must say it as fast as possible. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? As much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

@user-ii3vn8tn3q

Ай бұрын

I can PROVE I'm American! Spits out 'how much wood would a woodchuck...'

@JW-vd4il

Ай бұрын

How much ground could a groundhog hog if a groundhog could hog ground?

@julianneavery6995

25 күн бұрын

A wood chuck, can chuck, as much as a wood. As a wood chuck, can chuck wood. spoiler alert . A wood chuck, cant chuck wood.

@JW-vd4il

25 күн бұрын

@@julianneavery6995 😂 I think groundhogs do actually hog ground. I'm trying to remember a source but all that comes to mind is Caddyshack. 😁😜😂

@TinyStar-oz3bo

25 күн бұрын

If a woodchuck could chuck, would chuck wood, how much wood could a woodchuck chuck?

What the hell is a skunk? After you smell one, you will never have to ask that question again.

Raccoons can be tamed, my uncle had one as a pet for years. He had to childproof all his cabinets to keep the raccoon out of the food and trash in his house. It’s 11 pm and I’ve got one right now at my critter feeder. I love watching the wild animals and I get squirrel, raccoon, groundhog, opossums. Groundhogs are size of a raccoon.

We have Opossums put up residents in our yard off and on. Love having them, not only do they eat the bugs and snails (that eat up my flowers and garden) but they also keep the rats away which is a huge bonus.

With as crazy as they look opossums are key to the environment. They are the size of a cat, they're the only marsupial outside of Australia and New Zealand, they eat ticks and other bad insects, and they're not able to get rabies. So all in all a pretty cool animal.

@mattherring3196

28 күн бұрын

But crazy mean when cornered!!!

@gregdubya1993

27 күн бұрын

@@mattherring3196 I've never found them to be that mean. Once they play dead you can move them easily (with leather gloves on of course).

@sweatygoblin2335

23 күн бұрын

@@mattherring3196 not mean, just absolutey terrified of you. All they can do is hiss, play dead, and make a stinky - I've literally put my hand inside a hissing possum's mouth and she did nothing. I've never even heard of someone being bitten, though I suppose it's possible.

Opossums are cute when they aren’t upset and snarling! I like the one who lives in my back yard.

Coyotes are infamous for using the bait tactic on people's pet dogs. They get the dog to chase them or simply follow an attack them with the whole pack. I hear the coyotes often at night in the distance barking and howling which is kinda mixed together so I call it harking lol but anyway that usually means they are running another animal down or have actually done so.

He picked the worst picture of a possum. They are adorable especially when they're carrying ten kids on their back.

@brettbuck7362

15 күн бұрын

They are not, they are pretty ugly guys and the babies on the back are creepy at best.

Raccoons can be friendly if you feed them, but they are always wild.

@jeffslote9671

Ай бұрын

Please don’t feed them. Feeding wild animals will get them killed

@ViolentKisses87

Ай бұрын

It's pretty easy to adopt an orphan raccoon and they make a decent pet but their intelligence means they will constantly be getting into mischief.

@robynbeach3198

Ай бұрын

I would say a friend more than a pet. You don't want an adult racoon living in your house.

@valerieholmes9211

Ай бұрын

The small is so bad, we have a song, bad skunk in the middle of the road.

@european-reacts

Ай бұрын

Makes sense

Groundhogs are super cute, kind of like beavers. They're actually pretty chill except when they dig up vegetable gardens.

@bonnyj931

Ай бұрын

And their tunnels can undermine the foundation of a big building!

@sassylassie3061

Ай бұрын

@bonnyj931 Sure....If you aren't maintaining your property. Because, if you are, you would be aware of the issue when it was a small problem and prevent it from becoming a big one.

@thorn2497

23 күн бұрын

🤔💭"Prarie Dog Town" -Bruce Hornsby-

@clarehidalgo

22 күн бұрын

Groundhogs are big squirrels

@kristinajones2174

21 күн бұрын

Recently discovered, in person, that groundhogs are also quite adept at climbing kudzu vines. So, think of them as monkey-beavers, without the flat leathery tail. They can sometimes even be mistaken for a really fat otter.

Raccoon and Skunk (descented) both can be domesticated, but both animals are primarily nocturnal. If they are left to their own devices, they will be mischievous while you sleep.

I used to feed a family of wild skunks my table scraps. Their presence kept people away better than an angry pitbull, because that smell lingers forever.

I've seen thousands of racoons, and I think most Americans would say the same thing. They're cute, but they are WILD animals! They are also very destructive. In one place I lived they got into our attic from the outside. It took us weeks to get them out. They can be very fierce, and if they attack a person, they can do a lot of damage. They are also rabies carriers. I have never been deliberately mean to a racoon, but I would never try to make friends with one. Groundhogs look like hamsters, but they're about 100 time bigger. I've been skunked. It's like being tear-gassed! Seriously, I ended up vomiting uncontrolably. It doesn't smell anything like "poop." Possums are wonderful! They kill pests like ticks, and they don't carry rabies. Yea Possums! I live in the middle of Providence, Rhode Island, and my yard overlooks a graveyard. We see coyotes in there all the time.

@hiheeledsneakers

Ай бұрын

You are spot on ❤

@SherriLyle80s

Ай бұрын

I have to technically say that they are called Opossums. Possums are in Australia. I have some family that live there and they have corrected me also 😂

@christopherstephenjenksbsg4944

Ай бұрын

@@SherriLyle80s I don't doubt it, and the possums in Australia are probably different animals. But herre in New England everybody calls opossums "possums", and I believe the same is true down south. It's not something that I think will change any time soon.

@ashleydixon4613

Ай бұрын

@@christopherstephenjenksbsg4944yep, the possums are possums down South as well (at least in Arkansas). They told me so. Then they hissed at me and told me I’d smoked enough for the night, and I should go inside and stop talking to possums. 😁

@christopherstephenjenksbsg4944

Ай бұрын

@@ashleydixon4613 That's hilarious! Possums are so cool!

Andre, you're not dumb and you're not ignorant! You're just in the process of learning and we don't expect you to know everything right away. It's kind of funny though when you asked if any of us have ever seen raccoons because they are incredibly common! I live in Massachusetts and you don't really see them too often because they are nocturnal, but every once in a while you catch a glimpse of them and they definitely make themselves known by doing things like sorting through trash. Skunks, deer, and coyotes are common here as well. By the way, I noticed that you smiled when you mentioned Laurence's cat. You've mentioned also having a cat. I think you should bring your cat on sometime! People love cats! I guarantee that a video featuring your cat would put a lot of smiles on a lot of peoples faces! Maybe you can at least tell us its name?

I've had over 20 pet raccoons throughout the years, 6 pet squirrels, 2 pet deer, two skunks, a pet groundhog, a beaver, a fox, a coyote, and I currently have a opossum.

@kingofopossums

17 күн бұрын

All of the animals I raised until they could take care of themselves and then they went back into the wild.

You can smell a dead skunk in your car driving by it with the windows and vents closed. It's that potent.

My son has four raccoons that people dumped him with when they decided to be irresponsible. They are house pets but very very active. Vets will not even see them and put them down right away due to rabies fears. We live in Montana and keep telling people to leave the babies in the wild. They are spoiled and loved now but should have been left in the wild. Love your channel.

@snowflakehunter

Ай бұрын

There are plenty of vets in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that will see raccoons.

9:27 you can keep a skunk as a pet, but you have to have the musk glands removed first so they don't spray you...

The critters were here (Canada) long before we were. They serve a purpose. I love skunks and had one in my back yard 2 nights ago. I just spoke to it softly, it looked at me and then carried on digging for grubs in the grass. A friend had an orphaned one as a pet for years. It played with their dog and would sit on the couch with them nibbling on their toes. Raccoons are everywhere. Coyotes sound eerie in the night and you know when they've cornered a prey.☹Canada's west coast has a lot of bald eagles. Opossums look weird but are beneficial and eat a lot of grubs, especially ticks.

I love how open-minded and interested you are to learning something new. I hope Santiago will be able to have that too.

@krisfinley6706

Ай бұрын

With Andre as his father and role model I'm sure he will 😊

Yes, skunk spray smells like nothing you have ever smelled before and never want to smell again!

@m2hmghb

Ай бұрын

I don't try to describe it, it's just that foul. The only smell I've found that rivals decomposing animals.

@sammymartin7891

Ай бұрын

The smell of marijuana X1000 plus a little bit of rotten fish.

@alycewich4472

25 күн бұрын

The part that is the worst to me is the eye burn if it sprays anywhere close to you. I live next to a busy street so sometimes in the spring one gets hit at night and the smell and eye burn drift over the neighborhood.

I love that he mentioned Coeur D'Alene Idaho. I've lived in that area my entire life, it's beautiful and you see so much wildlife there! It's a beautiful part of the country.

Actually its only the Tanuki suit that turns into a statue and its based on myth in folklore about Takuni who have massive testicles and can transform into various forms at will. They are commonly referred to as "raccoon dogs", which probably why the raccoon leaf and tanuki suit tails are similar in pattern and people confuse the two. There are plenty of japanese media which have the mischievous Tanuki prominently featured in them.

As a child I had a racoon that we rescued that had suffered a crushed paw as a baby, it took so long to rehab the poor little guy he couldn't go back in to the wild so we got to keep him. My grandfather had me do a lot of the bottle feeding and such so he was very attached to me and so I got to name him (Rosco P. Coaltrain from "The Dukes of Hazard" of course). He was a wonderful companion until he passed of old age. It's really a shame they don't have longer life spans. ETA: We also had an opossum somehow befriend our cats and come in through the cat door in to our back shed where I found it munching food out of a bowl along side one of our cats like they were the best of chums. It would come in all the time and only make occasionally hissing protests as either myself or my husband shoved it back out of the cat door with a broom each time.

@carriehv740

Ай бұрын

Laughed when I saw this...that's the name we gave the one that's been "bandit'ting" through our cat door for the last couple months...perhaps it's a raccoon thing 😂

@paigeharrison3909

Ай бұрын

I used to have opossums come in my cat door all the time. I could actually pick them up to toss them out.

I've seen plenty of raccoons, but my favorite raccoon encounter was watching a mother racoon and her babies in a cherry tree picking and eating cherries. Very cute.

Skunks don't actually smell that bad themselves, but they can spray you with liquid stink so intense it can make you physically ill. When I was younger we had a dog that got sprayed by a skunk, and we couldn't bring him into the house for 2 weeks. We washed him every day, and he still smelled so bad it would make you eyes tear up.

@madeofmandrake1748

22 күн бұрын

Yep yep! It's strange, I never owned a dog that hasn't been sprayed. I don't think I've owned a dog that has ever been sprayed twice either, lol. It's almost like a christening of a ship or the baptism of a child. Every North American dog learns that lesson sometime, it's like some cruel rite of passage or something.

Poop smells like Roses compared to a skunk. Skunk is like, concentrated rotten pot mixed with fresh cat urine and pureed rank predator feces..... and its as sticky as oily tar, you can never get it off your skin.... Another thing he doesn't note or doesn't know is that American White Tailed Deer get bigger the further north you travel. White tailed deer in Maine are 200-300lbs for a buck and 120-175lbs for a doe.

In my neighborhood in NH I have seen deer, coyotes, bears, raccoons, ground hogs, skunks, porcupines, possums, fox, and bats. There are Bob cats but never saw one.

@anonygent

Ай бұрын

I used to see bobcats all the time here in Florida, but not recently.

@bonnyj931

Ай бұрын

Live in Indiana and all except bear and porcupines I've seen in my yard.

"How Bad can Skunk scent be?" You cannot even imagine. At close range, it can cause some people to vomit. Having had the misfortune of being sprayed - I can tell you that it is best avoided. The smell can be removed from your body, with some effort, but you may have to dispose of your clothes and shoes.

@tonyburzio4107

Ай бұрын

The antidote to skunk is tomato juice. Bathing in tomato juice. Who cares what it costs, you'll pay.

@Kimmie9553

Ай бұрын

@@tonyburzio4107that doesn’t actually really work. It just overwhelms the human sense of smell so you’ll only notice the tomato scent… at first. Or you’ll smell a mix of tomato and skunk, but dogs and other animals can smell the skunk scent and will react to it. The way to get rid of it is to cover everything in dish soap and baking soda with NO water, let it sit, then after some time rinse it off.

@theblackbear211

Ай бұрын

@@tonyburzio4107I still can't face tomato juice - and that wash off was 50 years ago.

@susieq9801

Ай бұрын

@@theblackbear211 - The spray from a skunk can actually cause an allergic reaction in a dog and cause it to become anaemic and even die.

@theblackbear211

Ай бұрын

@@susieq9801 yep.

I used to live on a 1000-acre ranch in Northern California, and we had a pair that roosted on top of a high power line tower not too far from our houses. OMG! When these Eagles would fly over our houses, their shadows would shade my entire house making it rather dark. It would cast a shadow on both sides of my house at the same time. It was amazing! I loved watching them fly over. Even though I would see them all the time, every time one would fly over I would stop (pull over if I was on the road and not a ranch road, and just watch them. I remember being a little late for school and telling my teacher that we stopped to watch the bald eagle flying around us. Coyotes are scrawnier and scrappier looking than the wolf. Nowhere as majestic.

If you've ever smelt very strong marijuana, you pretty much know what a mild skunk smell is like.

I would imagine that just about every US state has racoon's other than maybe Alaska and Hawaii, and it wouldn't shock me if those states had them as well. A better question, Andre, would have been "have any of you watching NEVER seen a racoon.".

@pauljanetzke

Ай бұрын

Neither Hawaii nor Alaska has racoons natively. The closest you will find in the wild to racoons in Hawaii is mongoose. Mongoose are all over the place on Maui, Moloka'i and O'ahu. They were introduced by the sugarcane industry to combat rats in the fields in the 1880s I think.

Skunk! Well known by cartoons of Pepe le Peu! They are so cute under certain circumstances. Mainly mom and little ones bopping along, checking you out as you stand very still and just take pictures and admire.

Another fact! The bald eagle does not have a loud epic cry like shown on TV typically. That is actually the cry of a hawk as bald eagles actually sound more like sqweekie toys.

I live in Toronto Canada. And no it isn't snow covered all year round. Currently it is 30°C (86F). Racoons are all over the place. At one point one dug through asphalt to get into our garage for a comfy place to sleep. I have also seen them out in the wild (there are more in the cities). I was camping with boy scouts. We heard a noise and there was a family of raccoons eating a cake that was accidently left out in the dining tent. When they saw us they took off. We could no longer eat the cake so put it near the wall of the tent. A small paw came under the side of tent and pulled it outside. It was cute but had a bad result. The raccoons decided we were the ideal spot for dining. But it was pot luck. They brought the garbage from every nearby campsite into our campsite which we had to clean up.

Raccoons also are high carriers of rabies. AKA "Trash Pandas" nickname. They can get up to 22 pounds or a bit more, They growl, will kill chickens if you raise them and their eggs and young. While camping one of my husbands friends in the middle of the night got up to empty his bladder only to realize he was peeing on a skunk, he did manage to back away without getting sprayed. Where I live in Wisconsin you can see Bald Eagles near the Wisconsin River if your lucky you can see them fishing in the river.

@lsswappedcessna

26 күн бұрын

skunk: "c'mon man, not cool"

You CAN domesticate raccoons if you get them as pups. When I was about 4, we had one that was orphaned. Skunks can also be domesticated as kits, you will need a vet to remove the scent glands. They enjoy digging ...a lot, so mainly an outside pet. The first o in opossum is normally silent so " possum" is what I've heard them called - my whole life. White tails and mule deer, " mulies" are larger than Euro deer. Coyotes CAN be domesticated. It's fairly common here in Nevada

@alycewich4472

25 күн бұрын

My sister had a puppy that was part coyote and part dog. Highly intelligent animal. She ended up as my grandmother's dog and both were happy with the arrangement.

@sweatygoblin2335

23 күн бұрын

domestication is a generations-long process of selectively breeding for traits that make the animal beneficial to humans. You can have tamed pups, but they're stil wild and always will be.

Just north of him in WI are a LOT of American bald Eagles.. a great effort to save them succeeded. A short 3 hour drive to Sauk City, or prairieDuSac WI on the Wisconsin River in the winter will see a lot of the eagles in the winter.

I had a friendly family of raccoons living in my yard when I owned a house. I fed them and the stray cats in the neighborhood, and they never bothered each other 😻

The smell of skunk is right up there with the decomposing body of an animal. It is one of the most disgusting smells I've ever had the misfortune of smelling. It's especially vile when they decide to scent mark a property.

LOL - Living in Ohio - I have seen 1000's of racoons...lol. In fact, we were camping, my sister and my kids and I and we always have a netted tent over the picnic table/food area - and put the iron skillet on top of the cooler and the bread/snack bin...all safe ... or usually - but I was hearing notices from in the tent one night - and I look out the tent window with the flashlight see about 8 sets of eyes looking into the light...lol. My daughter wakes up as well as my sister and seeing 4 or 5 racoons had climbed under the tightly attached tent and were really working at getting the iron skillet off of the cooler and had managed to get the two pans on the other bin off and removed the lid! We get out of the tent and take our shoes and throw them toward the animals - and they are so darn cute BUT they just looked at us like "What!" lol We are like get out of here - move it - and after about what seemed like forever - they literally walked in very slow motion out from under the mesh tent and waddled back into the woods.... acting totally ticked off that we had ruined their food adventure....again, they are pretty friendly - they aren't going to attack you - but you certainly can't try to pick them up or pet them - they WILL bite you then ... but I couldn't even get mad that they got into the potato chips and the bread....lol. They don't really make good pets, they will always be very destructive unfortunately....although some people have raised them from babies - IF you find a baby and try to raise it and keep it - most States require a special permit because they are a wild animal... Ohio has 1000's of groundhogs too - see them popping their heads up - again a very cute animal -- but again, will bite etc.. sadly they aren't fast runners - and we see a lot on the side of the road (roadkill).... Yes, 1000's of skunks too . . again a VERY cute little rodent -- that you definitely don't want to approach or scare - or they WILL spray you and it really stinks...they will walk right by you and do nothing - they only spray if they feel trapped or scared... that's why dogs are usually the ones that pay the price...they chase the skunks...and you got it!! And getting that smell off a dog is NOT easy! LOL Yes, Ohio also has 1000's of opossums! They aren't that cute...and they are a very nasty little rodent...what's neat is they carry their babies on their back and if they get scared - they play dead . . . ever heard the expression "playing possum"? or playing dead.... Ohio has 1000's of white tail deer - beautiful animal!!! Yes, we also have deer hunting season . . . Coyote's are actually much thinner than the picture shown - that pic did look like a wolf would.

@jamesacoffey9006

Ай бұрын

Neither skunks nor opossums are rodents.

@IAmAmiWickham

Ай бұрын

As a fellow Ohioan, the above details are accurate. 😊

Andre during a severe storm here in north Texas a few years ago my cousin heard her large tree outside snap. A very large limb snapped and fell and with it a family of raccoons. My cousin already feeds deer on her property so she started feeding them as well. They still come to her porch every night and this past spring the momma proudly, but cautiously brought her baby to her to be hand fed.

Theres a couple of Bald Eagle families out by my parents house (Michigan), they like to swoop down and steal the overpopulation of wild cats in the area. For anyone reading this that doesn’t know always be careful around them when you have a small animal or even an infant/toddler with you. Their main hunting tactic is picking things up in their massive talons flying up really high and dropping them, letting gravity do all the damage. My lil sis was babysitting our niece outside on the back porch when she felt all the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and she looked straight up in the sky to see one of the bald eagles in the area making circles lower and lower towards our niece who couldn’t even properly crawl yet. By the time she saw him he was already below the tops of the pine tress and was making good pace. She shot up like a bat out of hell yelling at the top of her lungs and diving on top our of niece and getting her inside thankfully 😅 Majestic animals, but they’re still dangerous.

Yes, skunks smell THAT BAD. I live in the woods in ohio and I see all these animals almost every day. And my opossums are huge, some over 20 lbs. They're not like mice, Andre.

@Cricket2731

Ай бұрын

'Possums look like big greyish, very toothy rats.

We lived in Cripple Creek Colorado. About 10000 ft elevation. A racoon family lived under our porch. They are so darn cute, but will try, with force, to open your doors, swing from the rafters, and tear the siding off your house. Ive heard they love hot dogs, spaghetti, and cherrios!

Opossums aren't mice. They are Marsupials (pouches they raise their young in) and they are about the size of a small dog. They look way scarier then they are.

Raccoons were common pets in Italy, I heard, and still kept as pets in Japan.

When I was a kid, we have a racoon and a skunk that lived together, under our shed. You really don't want to play with a wild racoon. Recently I had one in my yard, suffering from distemper. We have to make sure to keep our dog away from it. I am very lucky, a neighbor dispatched it for me.

Skunks have a distinctive scent. It gets in the back of your throat. I had a dog once who went on a skunk killing spree and killed six in six months. About the time everything settled down he’d go after another. I thank God we don’t have porcupines down here where I live. He wouldn’t have survived.

Raccoons are absolutely everywhere in America. A couple hours drive from where I live is Raccoon Creek State Park, in Pennsylvania. We used to go there as a kid because there's a lake and that's the closest "beach" until you get to Lake Erie. And bald eagles are kinda rare. For the longest time they used to be hunted and almost went extinct until we made them a protected species. It's illegal to tamper with their nests, and only certain licensed Natives are allowed to harvest the feathers. There's a nesting pair near my home that has a livecam set up that is available to the public to watch.

The suit in Mario 3 is a tanuki, which is different from a raccoon. Tanuki are dogs and aren't Raccoons at all. So the tanuki costume in Mario 3 is technically a dog costume. The tanuki has more in common with a wolf than a Raccoon.

@user-ei1mu6dr4r

Ай бұрын

Of course, being Americans, when the US learned about tanuki they called them "raccoon dogs"!

@sharondornhoff7563

18 күн бұрын

Japanese folklore is rich with tales of tanuki shapeshifters with supernatural abilities, hence the Mario suit's special powers.

About skunks, they can make great pets. The smell ends when their scent glands are surgically removed. Adopt a baby skunk then never release it into the wild as without their fragrant abilities the animal wouldn't be as able to defend itself.

FYI: Groundhog's Day is a cross-quarter day. Cross-quarter days are half way between the solstices and the equinoxes. They are Groundhog's Day on Feb 2, May Day on May 1, August 2 which doesn't have a name, and Halloween on Oct 31. Groundhog's Day and Halloween are celebrate in North America and May Day is celebrated in eastern Europe.

I have Raccoons outside eating corn and sunflower seeds right this very minute, they are out there every night in summer, I also have Bald Eagles that live on my property and they kill my beautiful Songbirds and Woodpeckers, but what are you going to do, they have babies to feed too and their food of choice is other birds and fish! Last year a baby Raccoon was orphaned and we took care of it until winter then it was killed in a snowstorm. The groundhog predicts the weather, or so they say. Skunks often share the food pile with the Raccoons out back. They are adorable, and they rarely let off their stink bomb. It is really awful to be sprayed by a Skunk, they get their stink sac removed if they have them for a pet. We also have Opossums that share the food pile out back. You should see them when they play dead, they foam at the mouth and everything else. Also White-Tailed Deer eat corn at the food pile, only the females though the big Bucks stand back and guard the females and the babies while they eat! We also have Coyotes, but thankfully they stay in the woods! This one was really fun Andre! Great reaction too!

The raccoon, groundhog, and skunks were mostly woodland animals, that as cities grew took their habits and so humans came in contact and saw (smelled in the case of skunks) them. I have had close encounters with all of these. The skunk was a foot away and was just as surprised as me and we just left each other alone.

lol, yes skunks smell really really really bad. A few years ago I was walking my 2 dogs and all 3 of us got sprayed. It kind of smells like burnt rubber but 100 times worse.

skunks are sometimes kept as pets even if they probably shouldn't be, when someone does keep one as a pet they almost always have the spray gland removed so they cant spray the smell any longer. Its naturally a defense mechanism for the skunk to get away from predators it doesn't just smell, it'll burn your eyes and make them watery so the skunk can make its escape.

The tails on White-tail deer are very obvious when they're running away because the white part is the underneath. When they run, the are straight up in the air like flags. Fun when you see a whole herd take off, backends waving. They also like to play chicken with vehicles, especially semi-trucks on the interstates. They are also pretty large. The deer I saw when I was stationed in California were tiny in comparison.

If you live in America. You’ve definitely seen a raccoon.

@Carfan678

Ай бұрын

I literally have to lock my garbage so they don't get in and make a mess 😂

Raccoons are everywhere where I'm at. I also have a woodchuck and her family that lives under my workshop. They are cool and don't hurt anyone. Bald Eagle's were very rare (very endangered because of pesticides), but they have been protected, and their numbers are greatly increasing. The first I I ever saw a Bald Eagle in the wild was about 20-25 years ago. I live near a large river and several lakes, and I will see many!!! They are truly majestic!!! There are also black bears here, coyotes, foxes, bobcats, deer, wild turkey, billions of squirrels, wild hogs, prairie sogs, beaver 🦫, possums, armadillos, skunks amongst other critters!!! Most of these animals are night animals, and you won't come in contact with them.

@user-ei1mu6dr4r

Ай бұрын

You should look up prairie dogs. They are America's answer to meerkats! They live in towns (underground tunnels and burrows) and each town has its own language, or I guess maybe dialect. When they come up to forage, there is always a sentinel on guard for birds of prey and carnivores, and the guards have a different alarm call for each type of predator. I lived down the hill from a prairie dog town in Wisconsin. They were so cool!

Funny story…. I lived in an apartment and the trash dumpsters always had raccoons in them. Taking out the garbage was a 2 person thing. One of us would run out and open the dumpster. Then we would wait for the raccoons to run out, etc. then the next person would run out and throw the garbage into the dumpster. Then the first person would run back and close the dumpster. 🙈😂

@JesseLJohnson

Ай бұрын

They used to jump out at me all the time at one club I worked at. Till I started going out with a broom and smacking the dumpster before I dumped trash in there. Smack the dumpster they would get the hint and jump out. I went into work one night and there was a feral cat and a coon brawling in front of the dumpster. Guess they were fighting over who got trash rights that night. The dumpster here at my house never had that problem and there are plenty racoons here. Last summer there was 3 bears trying to get into it though. Woke up to a banging outside at like 5am. Look out there 3 bear. They couldn't figure out how to get it open. There was bear paw prints all over it. Took forever for the rain to finally wash the prints off. Been woke up but other loud noises out there between the house and body shop too and seen some strange things. 2 times there was a damn cow out there. One night my grandma spent the night and there was a cow out there licking her car real early in the morning

Skunk's terrible smell is actually one of the smartest defense mechanisms I've seen in nature. It's not that they smell bad all the time - but when they feel threatened they spray this incredibly foul-smelling, sulphur-y liquid at their attackers. If the liquid gets on you then the smell sticks to you for WEEKS. I assume this is very effective at helping skunks not to get eaten by predators, because who wants to deal with that? If you look at American media, for a while in the 90s many kids shows had some kind of "this character/pet was sprayed by a skunk and now we have to try to get the smell out of them" episode.

Skunk smell is impossible to describe, but the comparisons to rotting carcasses gives you a pretty good idea. The scent is also difficult to remove from fabric. Sometimes the only thing you can do with affected clothing is throw it away. Nevertheless, skunks are really interesting animals. They actually prefer not to spray. Once they use their spray, their bodies take a week and a half to make more. Skunks usually only spray when they're completely cornered, and even then, they send warning signals first. In my opinion, the coolest things about skunks is that they can eat snakes because they're immune to venom.

Raccoons have a vicious bite. As a child, I grew tomatoes in the back yard and periodically a skunk would get into my tomato patch and when we would let our 2 beagles out into the yard they would chase the skunk and get sprayed. Then somebody in the family would have to give the dogs bath--no fun at all. Raccoons, skunks, groundhogs, opossums . . . I feel like the armadillo doesn't get fair treatment on KZread.

Thank you for your content and for giving us the opportunity to experience The States through your reactions. If you knew everything about America... then what fun would it be to react to the videos?! In terms of size Opossums (possums) are closer to the size of a house cat when fully grown (4-14 lb / 1.8-6.35 kg.) It's similar with Groundhogs, but they are quite thick and substantial (5-13 lb / 2.26 -5.9 kg.) Neither are small like hamsters.

@sharondornhoff7563

18 күн бұрын

Groundhogs also eat grass, leaves and flowers, unlike hamsters which mostly eat seeds.

Last time I saw an opossum was when I lived in San Francisco, about a block from Golden Gate Park. It was crossing the street.

It’s fun watching your reactions to the wild animals of North America. Eagles are classified as Raptor birds. I have been in a “eagle enclosure” where one was kept in was kept and I was asked if I wanted to pet it,i said no i knew the bird’s reputation for fighting back. Eagles that have been injured and can’t live on their own, live at a sanctuary or a wildlife center become an “ambassador” for educational programs so people get to know about this bird.

Fun fact for the uninitiated: striped and spotted skunks have distinctive smells and you can get to know the difference. Spotted skunks are extremely flat and can get in places you wouldn't think possible.

I don’t think anyone says O possum. You just say possum. Silent O.

Living in Indiana, I regularly see raccoons, possums, groundhogs and skunks visiting the cat food bowls outside.

Coyotes are smaller than wolves, and even more skittish of human contact. But they much more frequently come into contact with humans, and not just because there are a lot more of them. Coyotes have started living in the more undeveloped parts of many US cities, mostly in parks. And, of course, they are resident in many suburban areas. In the eastern US we have a special "coyote" called a coywolf. It's actually a coyote-wolf hybrid. It's nearly as big as a wolf, but it fortunately still behaves like a coyote (i.e. they really prefer to avoid humans). I saw one trotting through a neighborhood that I was driving through one morning in Arlington, Virginia. There just happened to be a guy out walking his German shepherd at the time. That coywolf was about 25% bigger than that German shepherd. It was a pretty impressive thing to behold.

Raccoons when they are chased by dogs will swim out into water and when the dog goes after him he climbs onto the dogs head and drowns him

Wait for the explanation. We typically don't use the word "animal" to describe fish, birds, or insects. Although a Bald Eagle is an "animal" we commonly think the word "bird", we tend to be more specific between flying and swimming animals.

@jamesacoffey9006

Ай бұрын

Who is we? That's bull.

@richardmartin9565

Ай бұрын

Animals, unlike plants, have the ability to move and breathe. Calling all these creatures "animals" is simply not done. Instead we tend to identify the various animals by species such as mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, insects etc. We do the same for the word "vegetation". We don't normally refer to trees as "vegetation" or "plants".

@jamesacoffey9006

Ай бұрын

@@richardmartin9565 your argument is idiotic.

Up until I was 12 years old, we lived on a farm. We had a Samoyed dog who regularly prowled the fields, catching groundhogs. He'd drag them into the front yard of the house, where my dad, grandfather, or Dad's first cousin would have to clean the mess up. They didn't mind too much, because they didn't want their burrows creating a hazard for the cattle. However, no one was very happy when the dog decided he could take on a skunk too, and he didn't learn from his mistakes.

Groundhogs are also called Whistle pigs here. They make a short whistling sound. When startled the flatten out and freeze. The meat is sweetish, like a sweet pork. The Body is ioften used by rural folks as bags.

Yes skunk is that bad . The spray is self defense and if your pet gets sprayed it can make them and you physically ill. The smell is also incredibly difficult to get off.

Im from Indiana as well. My family used to camp at this campground where we could pay one price to leave our campers there all summer long. That way we could go camping there whenever we wanted to. There were 3 campers right next to each other with some of our friend's camping around us. The raccoons kept getting into our stuff outside. My brother chased one off. It began climbing a tree, and he threw a piece of cardboard (the thin light weight type) to try to frighten it from coming back. But the cardboard accidentally hit the raccoon in the temple of its head, and it fell from the tree and was convulsing on the ground. We went to try and help it, but it was understandably really angry. It got up and walked off, twitching and wobbling like it was drunk and making sounds. It wanted revenge. We were all very tired because our family had to do the fireworks display for America's Birthday that night at the campground. We did not have the fancy type of campers that rich people have. So we had to walk to the restrooms at the campground that everyone used. I opened the camper door at about 6am and saw that the raccoons had came in the night and pulled the kid's sand toys out and shredded many of them up, pulled the trash out of the bins and spread it around, tore up the camping chairs and completely trashed only our 3 campsites. There were many other campsites there but only ours got destroyed because my brother accidently hit that coon in the head making it turn twitchy. I went back in my camper and peed in an empty disposable ice cream bucket and put the lid back on it and went back to bed. The others did the same. Later on we got up to clean it all up. My aunt rescued a baby racoon because it's mother was dead on the road. The baby was uninjured on the side. She took it home and fed it until it grew up. It used the liter box like a cat. She lived in an old house in the woods. She kept her window open so it could come and go as it pleased. It eventually had babies up high in a tree and would sometimes come visit but it returned to the wild. A lot of people who keep raccoons as pets say that the coon wants to go back to the wild once they grow up and they will get mean if they are not allowed to go back. My aunt also found a baby deer on the side of the road. The mother was hit and killed by a car. The baby became potty trained to only go potty outside like her dogs did. She fed it with a bottle until it got big enough to go outside to run around with the dogs as it grazed. She put a bright orange hanky on it in hopes that hunters would not shoot it. It never came back. It went wild. Some people keep Possums for pets. They look terrifying but are actually cuddly babies but one should still not touch or pick them up because they are wild. They would get in the heated little cat house I had for my outdoor barn cats in the winter and snuggle with the cats eating their food. And eating the duck's eggs if they made their nests outside of the coop. The campground up near the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes always had tame wild raccoons and skinks that were used to people. Because of that we would be sitting at the picnic table at night time eating and suddenly feel a skunk walking under the table. We had to not move or legs or it might scare the skunk which could cause it to spray us. This happened a lot. They would take food out of our hands. So would the squirrels and chip munks. One night one of the kids did not eat all their food and they scrapped the food off their plate in the woods behind our tent. In the middle of the night, we heard a lot of fighting going on, and a skunk sprayed a racoon, which happened to be standing by our tent. We all came running out of the tent gagging with our eyes watering. The smell was unbearable. It smelled like bad sweety armpits combined with pungent feet and sickening rotting sweat fruit combined on steroids. The smell is soo powerful that is carries for miles. Other campers were waking up to gag and cough and dry heave. A campground full of people wretching. There was no other place to go sleep. It was too hot to sleep in the van. We grabbed our blankets and went and slept on this one old log cabin porch but the smell was bad there too. People were gagging and coughing looking for places to sleep that was farther away. I think some people walked on the short trail to the beach to sleep in the sand at Lake Michigan. I was raised by a rail road tracks. At night time the train whistle made them howl. At night time I would sometimes go outside and howl to see if they were in our woods near by. They would always answer back with their combo of yipping & howling in various sections all around me. I liked sleeping outside especially in our woods to camp, but I took our dogs with me. The cyotes were afraid of the campfire and the dogs. They don't wanna mess with humans much anyways, but I had protection just incase. I enjoyed watching your reactions. 😊🥰🙂💜🌻 Have a good week and weekend.

Everything on that list except mule deer are very common in my area (VA). Bald eagles and coyotes are a bit less common here, but raccoons, skunks, white-tail deer, opossums, and groundhogs are common sights. I don’t know how to describe the skunk smell, but if you smell it once, you’ll know it forever. It’s very common to smell it in the spring when skunks are looking for mates and get hit by cars frequently. If your dog gets sprayed by a skunk, it takes days to get that smell off. Raccoons are very cute, annoying, sometimes carry rabies, and can be vicious. My mom had one as a pet when she was young, but only until it reached maturity. Opossums are scary looking, but very beneficial and they aren’t dangerous. They eat a lot of ticks, helping to reduce Lyme disease. Their body temperature is too low to carry rabies, and when they feel threatened they ‘play dead’. It’s really a biological defense they have no control over. They get stiff and release a smell like decay and they breathe very shallowly.

A friend who grew up on a small farm had a pet raccoon as a child; the babies are tameable to a certain extent, but they are constantly busy and curious and have HANDS, so are more chaotic than cats or ferrets. I don't remember the details on housebreaking. Pet skunks are de-scented; you don't want one to be startled in your yard -- overpowering acrid odor that a good nose can detect for weeks.

Baby raccoons put their paws over their eyes to “hide”, if you pick them up. Absolutely adorable!🥰