Raccoon bodies piling up across the GTA

Torontosun.com
Nov. 10, 2022
Liz Braun

Q: Why did the raccoon cross the road?

A: He didn’t -- as anyone who lives in the GTA can attest.

Raccoons are useless at crossing roads and that’s why their poor crushed bodies are such a frequent sight on our streets.

Between too many car versus raccoon mishaps, and a current spike in distemper, Toronto Animal Services (TAS) officers have their hands full this season.

A spokesperson for TAS told CP 24 Wednesday that they’ve had a surge in service requests for raccoons since May, including more than 400 calls for dead raccoon pickup in the first week of November.

What usually takes 48 hours is now taking 12 to 14 days, and that’s a lot of rotting corpses on the highways and byways.

Councillor Paula Fletcher posted on social media Wednesday about the cadaver pile-up in her area, Ward 14.

Fletcher included her letter to City Hall, which shows a huge increase in requests to TAS over injured or dead animals -- more than 3,000 such calls in both September and October.

Fletcher’s tweet includes information on where in the city the calls are most numerous, and those areas are Wards 14 and 19 (Toronto-Danforth and Beaches -- East York), each with more than 1,000 service requests over the past 10 weeks.

Part of the issue is that distemper outbreak among raccoons in Toronto.

If you see a friendly raccoon, keep your distance. Always.

Raccoons come out at night -- not in the day -- and Toronto currently has an infection problem.

Canine distemper is a virus and raccoons can catch it from other wildlife such as foxes and coyotes.

Animals with distemper often seem disoriented or ‘floppy’ and their coat is sometimes ragged or patchy. They seem more tired than aggressive, but may become aggressive if cornered.

TAS has declared a distemper outbreak. It’s important to make sure your dog’s shots are up-to-date, as wildlife can give distemper to domestic animals (although not to people.)

As always, the first rule of protecting yourself and your pets is don’t feed wildlife, either inadvertently (through unsecured garbage) or on purpose.

If you need to bag a dead raccoon and remove it from your property for 311 (animal services) pickup, wear rubber gloves!