Adventures in Ponding part 2: the Raccoons ate my Fish

The other night there were a lot of screeching noises outside and when I turned a flashlight on the neighbor’s tree, a beady-eyed white face stared back at me with a “Whaaaaat?” look on its face. The raccoons were back in town.

The trouble is, they like to go fishing in my pond. My three goldfish are now eaten.

There is an older, smaller pond nearby and the goldfish in it had a means of hiding from the raccoons in the weeds (the pond was otherwise trashed), but in the new, bigger pond, there was no escape. Goldfish aren’t very bright so when they panic, they swim wildly and the raccoons can easily hunt them down, even wading into the pond!

I got off lucky though. The guppies are still there. A friend in Tarzana was less lucky. A pelican landed in his pond and it cleaned up absolutely everything. I haven’t seen any pelicans around here. Another ex-neighbor placed a wire mesh across his pond – sort of defeats the purpose of having a pond at all, don’t you think? But at least it is better than his previous solution - taking out a BB gun (that’s illegal by the way – raccoons are natives).

Raccoons are said to feast on pretty much everything - vegetables, berries, fruit, mice and fish. The vegetable bed has been trashed periodically - I am sure it is their fault. No squirrel would have trashed the place quite like that. Some metal tomato stakes strategically placed may deter them from the garden, but as for the pond, I know I just have to add more plants and water features where the goldfish can hide, if I am going to prevent the next attack.

Good news update: the raccoons missed one goldfish which apparently was pregnant - now there are lots of young goldfish in the pond.

Photo credit: Wikipedia - Darkone