Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Wildlife Management Another Mystery - Dead Coons

Smelled decomp this morning. Found two coons floating face down in the pond. One medium and one large.

Heard fighting a couple of nights ago.

Did they kill each other? Murder suicide?

Or was a third party involved? This (Big Thicket) IS Bigfoot country after all.

Hauled one on shore. First vultures arriving to clean up the mess.

If the second gets close to shore I'll pull it out, otherwise the turtles will have to get to work.

Sure seems odd that they would be able to kill each other, at least intentionally.

Maybe a mating gone wrong, ending in a dual drowning? Although I think it's a bit late in the year for that kind of thing.

Murder Suicide may have a better chance of being right...LOL

I have heard that animals that get poisoned often go to water.

I HAVE been battling Texas Leafcutter Ants. I've been using Amdro Ant Block, the only product listed for Leafcutters.

It is a bait, almost identical to their fire ant bait (added sugar and soy oil).

When I treat the main nest I notice that "somebody" digs out the ant holes to get the bait. I placed a game camera and captured a possum, then a coon, then an armadillo, all in one night. So everybody in the woods wants a little bit of the bait.

So it is possible that the coons suffered from the pesticide. I am skeptical though as it is a weakly poisoned bait that doesn't even kill the ants for several days. And even then I have been unable to eliminate the little buggers.

Hard to say, they might have become disorientated from the pesticide or something else happened. Drowning doesn't fit the MO of the three viral diseases that are known to affect raccoons, canine distemper, feline distemper, and rabies.

Is it possible that they may have been chased into the water by coyotes? If so the coyotes may have tried to wait them out and they simple tired and drowned after swimming around the pond for several hours. Years ago at my dad's old pond his dog chased a young raccoon into the pond at dusk, it tired and drowned trying to swim through the eurasian milfoil to the other side. My dad saw it happen and brought the dog in shortly after raccoon went into the water, he found the dead raccoon the next morning. All it had to do was make it through about 80 yards of milfoil growing to the surface or come back to the spot where it went in and it was home free.

I have heard (seems reasonable), to not let your dog follow a raccoon into the water because of how comfortable raccoons are in the water such that they can easily drown a pursuing dog. Sometimes a dog will mortally wound a raccoon on land before it gets in the water. Raccoons are fierce and can definitely kill each other. Tough critters! A large dog like a German Shepherd can often easily dispatch even a large raccoon once they they get the knack of it. In my experience, they are just curious initially, but once bit, curiosity turns into a different emotion...

Here in NE we have so many coons they do get distemper. They do go for water and I have found some in our pond. They act different than a healthy coon, their out in the day and not that scared of people, cars or dogs.

Yes in Ontario we see this all the time too. If you see them before they enter the water they are all sweeted up and go to water to cool off. Distemper is nasty right now way more often then rabies.

If they entered the water with distemper they will drown in time and swim or spin in circles on the shore.

What do the buzzards act like when they get the distemper after cleaning up the coons?

I think vultures are immune to darn near everything. They can eat a taco from that roach coach food truck at the construction site and not get food poisoning.