Rob Ford: Raccoons have scared me — but no euthanasia needed
Wily nocturnal raiders, well familiar to Torontonians, are even more ubiquitous this year, Councillor David Shiner says.

TheStar.com
Aug. 18, 2014
Betsy Powell

Rob Ford says raccoons are a severe and frightening problem for many Torontonians, but the mayor doesn’t support a mass euthanasia program.

“I’ve had some standoffs with some raccoons,” Ford told reporters at city hall Monday.

“I’ve seen it with the neighbours and sometimes you open your blue bin or black bin they jump out — honestly, it scares you when it’s pitch black.”

On Monday, the city’s licensing committee discussed Councillor David Shiner’s request for a staff report on options to deal with what the councillor calls the “exploding” raccoon population in Toronto. The committee asked staff to report back to the new council after the Oct. 27 election.

Ford doesn’t sit on the committee. However, Ford echoed Shiner’s concern about the city’s raccoon population getting “braver and braver” and unafraid of humans. He said raccoons are such a menacing presence outside his Etobicoke home that his two young children and wife are terrified to take out the garbage.

“They say ‘no, daddy, you’re taking the garbage out,’ ” Ford said. “We have to make deals who’s going to go and put out the garbage at night because they’re going to sit there.”

As Torontonians know, the masked bandits are all but ubiquitous in some parts of the city on summer nights. Known for their dexterous raiding of trash bins for discarded food, they demonstrate little fear of humans (no matter how much they may rattle some of us) but they’re considered non-aggressive unless cornered or provoked.

Ford said some residents have called for the right to euthanize the “little critters.” That’s not something he would support, unless a raccoon was being overly aggressive and attacking people. Ford said he has no solutions to offer.

He’s not the first civic leader to express raccoon dread.

In 1997, Mel Lastman, then running for mayor of the amalgamated city, argued Toronto should have twice-a-week garbage pickup because weekly service attracts raccoons, skunks and rats.

“I know that if I walked out at night and I saw a raccoon, those big eyes staring at me, I’d run . . . People are petrified to put the garbage out.”