Raccoons: Pesky Varmints or Man's Best Friend?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Leading the cat, nothing for the dog.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
There's seriously, it's just like it was a matter of
time for them. Now where's ours? Yeah, where's ours? So
we're gonna get one. So what is what is on
the line? What can we put on the line if
we if we get a winner, what are we willing
to do so people want to sign up and win
this contest? This kind of goes hand in hand with

(00:23):
the how do we become famous in a stupid way
conversation from yesterday?

Speaker 1 (00:28):
What can we do right.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Now over the next four hours to make people want
to sign up?

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Hmm.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
If we don't have a winner in the five o'clock hour,
I will sing Bohemian rhapsoy by myself and voice all
the instruments.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
Today. Yep, so that's probably gonna happen. No, that's not
what we want people to think.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
We want people to be like, oh, never mind, I'm
gonna go ahead and you know, get into this contest
real quick.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
I mean, do what you got to do to prevent it.
But you know, the the faiths are not in our favor, all.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Right, Well maybe not that. Well, something we'll think of something.
They're gonna hang us both by our feet in the
hallway if we don't get a winner. I heard that's
kind of good for you though, hanging upside down a
little bit. That actually is you know, like those inversion tables. Yeah,
it really helps your lumbars and your c fours.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
You stay there too long, I think you can die.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah, it's it's the uh, the the blood rushes to
your head and your legs don't get the proper circulation.
It messes with your heart's balance. But it's only for
a few minutes. We're not talking about that. We're talking
about like a torture device, right, Like they're hanging us
up by our feet and they may never knock us
down because we didn't get a winner today. So think
about that when you're not putting in the keyword to

(01:43):
kfab dot com, which is dollar this hour, by the way,
dollar d O L l A R. We've talked about
animal encounters before. Remember, remember are some of the animal
encounters we've talked about Betbridge Farm remembers and how we've
talked about bears, Like a bear probably isn't like the
there's a bear coming near you and it's a brown bear.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
That's a bad encounter. Probably waiting to happen. Yeah, have
you ever fed a raccoon? Not on purpose?

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, it's like I know some people like feed outdoor
cats and stuff and then the raccoons find it and
then they'll come. How many raccoons is too many raccoons.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
I'm not a big raccoon guy, so I'm gonna say, like, yeah, one,
if not two, one, maybe that's okay.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Keep your distance though. I don't trust raccoons. Why not?

Speaker 3 (02:29):
And it's wrong with raccoons. I just you know, raccoons
and squirrels. For me, squirrel, I don't trust either of
those animals. What is the squirrel gonna do? Because first off,
the raccoon like he I feel like he's on to us. Yeah,
like the raccoon is on to the humans a.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Little bit, and they have enough dexterity they actually pick
stuff up.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
And like get into thing that's troublesome. They could they
could turn handles if they need to. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Well, I went camping once and we literally went to bed.
I had some hot dogs left over that I hadn't
eaten yet, and I put the hot dogs in the cooler.
I put a six pack on the cooler, thinking that
would be enough to keep that shut from whatever we
try to get in. We're in a campground, it's dark,
it's whatever. We put the fire out. I get into
my tent. No sooner than I finished zipping the tent,

(03:14):
I can hear something rustling into my cooler. They had
dumped the six pack off of the top of the cooler.
They'd lifted it, and there was no more hot dogs
left than my cooler. It was that fast. They had
to have been watching me from the tree next to us.
They had to have been just like above me, watching us,
waiting for us to go to bed, and then they
were there, like it took no time at all. I
couldn't believe it, and there was no way it was

(03:35):
anything other than a raccoon. Nothing else is going to
have the strength or dexterity to be able to open
that cooler where we were camping, right. Well, a woman
in Washington State, there's a place called Kitsap County. She's
kind of in the woods, but she lives out there,
and she has been feeding a handful of raccoons for
the better part of like thirty years. Like she's lived
there in a long time. She says, for decades, I've

(03:56):
been feeding a family of raccoons, and everything was fine
until about six weeks ago. Do you do you what
do you think about that? It's like, hey, you know,
you just like toss some food out there there, and
they always know to come back. And whenever they come back,
you know, like they know they're going to probably get
some food.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Big deal, not a big deal.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
What do you think sounds like you wouldn't be welcoming
that kind of action to your house.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
I think it could multiply over time.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
I mean, if people find out there's free food, you know,
it's it's like us when when you go down to
those stores and maybe they're having a little event, they
got free hot dogs. Like that gets around, you know,
like hey, free hot dogs down the block. You just
got to put a fake email down. They won't know,
not that you've done that, not that I've personally done that,
of course that I know some people who had, And

(04:40):
if I knew your email, i'd send you one.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Yeah, it's good, it's good. Okay.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Well it didn't really multiply for her for several years
until six weeks ago, when close to one hundred raccoons
started to show up, like close to one hundred, like
like I'm going to try to flip this around and
see if my screen's black. But I'm going to try
to you know, let you see this. Yeah, it may
not it may not work because somebody messed with the

(05:05):
cords in this. Look up Washington Raccoons. You'll you'll see
what I'm talking about. Look up Washington raccoons. The video
is unreal. Oh wow, do you see that. Yeah, that's troubling.
And apparently they have gotten incredibly aggressive, like like aggressive
and competitive over attempting to get the food right.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
I tell you what also is aggressive. This website asking
me to donate. I'm just I'm just here to look
at some raccoons popping up all these things.

Speaker 4 (05:37):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Anyway, well there's there's the video that you're seeing is
from the Kidsap County sheriffs Sheriff's office. It's the video
you'll find if you just search Washington raccoons. There are
like dozens, close to one hundred raccoons just hanging out.
There are some just plopped down, sitting, chilling, grazing. They're everywhere,
and she says every day and night for the last

(05:58):
six weeks, they are pest her. They are attacking her
car and she pulls into her driveway. Wow, they are
swarming her. Every time she tries to leave the house,
they come scratching on her door if she hasn't fed them.
So with the numbers increasing, they have gotten incredibly demanding
and she had to call nine to one one to
get help and fled. And she had to flee her house. Now,

(06:19):
the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife determined she did
not violate any laws, and they say this she kind
of brought this upun herself by feeding the animals. Now, however,
the only state laws that are in existence for Washington
that make it illegal to feed animals or large carnival
carnivores like cougars and bears. Now, since she didn't break

(06:43):
any law or anything, it's just a problem she has
to deal with.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
So they talked to her.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
She said she'd stop feeding them, and they have started
to disperse. They've started to disperse. So bottom line, end
of the day, what do you think? What do you
think about this? What would you do in this situation?
All of a sudden, one hundred raccoons are outside your door?

Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah, well you know, are they protected?

Speaker 1 (07:08):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (07:09):
You think they're protected? If one hundred are showing up here.
I wouldn't think so. I just maybe I don't know.
You're trying to waste one. No, I'm trying waste one
and hold him up by the scruff of his neck
as he you know, his lifeless body sits there and
they're like, okay.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
Well that would send a message.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
I see that this is not the mutually beneficial relationship
we thought it was. I can understand that this is
taking a turn. Maybe we shouldn't be here right now.
Sometimes you do have to do something crazy to send
a message. And maybe that's just the crazy thing you
got to do. That old Granola Grandma might need to
turn into Rambo oh Rambo out there fighting off raccoons,

(07:50):
starting a domestic war with raccoons in our neighborhood, just.

Speaker 1 (07:55):
Walking up like roddy rowdy, roddy piper.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
You know, I'm here to chew bubble gum and kick them,
you know what, and I'm all out of bubblegum.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
If you've had encounters with raccoons somewhat like this, please
let us know. Call us at four oh two five
five eight to eleven ten. Four h two five five
eight to eleven ten. We're gonna move to Colorado last month.
There was an interesting thing about the a reintroduction of
wild wolves, and those wolves that were reintroduced, something predictable happen,
and now they're trying to problem solve that too. We'll

(08:26):
talk about it on news radio eleven ten Kfab.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
And Reese on news radio eleven ten KFAB.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
Mike's on our phone line A four roh two five
five eight to eleven ten. Hey, Mike, what do you
think about this?

Speaker 5 (08:39):
Hey?

Speaker 6 (08:41):
Own in the pest business, I can tell you a
quick way to take care of the raccoon. It depends
on if there's trees or whatever around the home. But anyway,
long story short, if you take peppermint oil and add
that like a concentrate. Uh so, if you've federal oil
and added water to it for let's say one gallon jug,
takes that about fifteen uh feet away from the house

(09:04):
and do that all the way around the house, and
I don't create a barrier. So what you're doing is
keeping everything out that's not ended the last each time
you do it in the last two to three weeks,
so you do it like once a month. But if
they're getting in thrashed or something like that, then that's
a different story. So you've got to get everything outside
out and everything that's trying to come in. You can
do the same thing. So we're doing a big bubble

(09:25):
all the way down, down, down, down, all the way
said nothing but long story short, like I said, pepper oil, uh,
and I have a gallon jugs, so like three ounces
to a gallon and then do that you can or
all the way around the property, and that that will
keep them from coming coming back in.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
It's interesting.

Speaker 6 (09:44):
Yeah, So I know I long went it there, but
that's all No.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
It's all good.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
Many Yeah, and I've been told that about the my
situation in my house too. A little peppermint oil in
the house will keep them out too.

Speaker 7 (09:53):
It is very good, very good barrier. Yes, it is
all right.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
Thanks Mike, that's good stuff. Yep, appreciate the call. Got
Joe on a phone line four two five, five, eight
eleven ten. Hey Joe, what's up? Hey Joe, you're on
the air. What's going on?

Speaker 5 (10:09):
Oh?

Speaker 8 (10:10):
I was gonna say, I think I can hide my
pets and invite some of the a couple of hations over.
That'd be win win.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
So do you think, uh, I mean, do you think
their raccoons being you know, uh fried up on uh
on the island over there, you think, Yeah, I mean
I heard.

Speaker 7 (10:26):
They taste great.

Speaker 8 (10:27):
I'm not, but I've heard they're pretty good.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
Uh yeah, yeah, I I you know, I'll take your
word for it, Joe.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
I don't think I'm gonna do that either, although if
you have a hundred of them outside your house sounds like, uh,
I mean, it could be good heating. I know people
eat roadkill before, so you know you ever had possum
pot pie? I it sounds disgusting.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
Good.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, I'll pass on that all right, Joe, appreciate the call.
Thanks for listening to us today. Uh. I don't know
how much is a raccoon way? What would be your guess.
I'm gonna I'm gonna figure this out.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
I would say it's it's very he gets some one
of those domesticated raccoons, you see, the raccoons that live
in the cities. I've seen some raccoons around here late
at night, around this neighborhood specifically, they're eating pretty good.
That's a big old boy.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
Well, I feel like most raccoons, they are very resourceful. Yeah,
Chadjipet says Raccoons typically weigh between eight and twenty pounds.
Some larger individuals can weigh up to thirty pounds or more.
Their weight can bit very based on factors like age, sex,
and availability of food in their environment. Thirty pounds that's
a lot bigger than your biggest cat.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
You probably are going to have.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
Yeah, did you see that there was a raccoon in
a stadium?

Speaker 1 (11:36):
Where was the raccoon in the stadium? Looked that up?

Speaker 2 (11:38):
I just I saw a photo of a raccoon getting
basically yeaded out of a stadium Broncos game this past weekend.
There was a raccoon a Broncos game this past weekend,
just like climbing up and crawling around, and they picked
him up by a scruff of his neck and carried
him out.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
And then there was a raccoon that was at a
soccer game. I watched that.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
I was watching that soccer game live, and the raccoon
was just like he's ran on the field and he's
just like he's running around. It's funny though, Like it's
pretty funny. There's there, you know what they are? Actually,
they got a great PR firm because they look great.
They look awesome. They're cool looking animal. And I feel
like every single person would be like, oh, yeah, raccoon,

(12:24):
what acute animal? Like if they don't have like opinions
on them, they'll be like, oh yeah, they're cool, you know.
Like also rocket from a rocket from Guardians of the Galaxy.

Speaker 1 (12:35):
Oh okay, he's a he's a mutant raccoon, you know.
So they have a great PR firm.

Speaker 2 (12:40):
We talk about some of the animals that don't have
great PR firms because they like hyenas, for instance, they
are everybody hates them because I my opinion is that
the Lion King made them the bad guys in a
very popular movie, and everybody's.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
Like, ah, hyenas the terrible animals. That's it's not true.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
I think cayenas are cool animals, but you know, they
don't have a good PR firm. I just sent you
a video of the raccoon at the soccer match, which
you just have to watch the video. It's fantastic. Ralph's
on a phone line four, two, five, five, eight to
eleven ten. Hey, Ralph, what do you think about these raccoons?

Speaker 9 (13:18):
Little factoids for you. They're nocturnal animals and if you
see one during the daylight, ninety nine point nine percent
chance it's a rabbit.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
It's rabbits, like it's got like rabies.

Speaker 9 (13:33):
Yeah, yeah, rabbit rabies because they're nocturnal animals. And the
second thing is I've had equipment destroyed by raccoons, custom
enclosed trailers that we use for hauling construction materials. Never
had never had any food in there, just insulation and

(13:59):
lumber and aluminum and stuff like that. And they tear
holes through the floor and it's like they they're on
drugs or something. They get in there and they will
destroy everything, I mean, right down to and so I've
got one more story to tell you. To have some
storage outside storage areas and several occasions where raccoons got

(14:28):
into a boat that was parked. Well, they'll do it
to a motor home too. Like I said, they'll just
tear holes right through everything. They're incredible, incredibly strong, and
with those opposing thumbs, it's like a hat on all
four corners. They're just anyway, if they get into a boat,
that's you know, got to cover on it.

Speaker 8 (14:48):
Yeah, parked boat.

Speaker 9 (14:51):
We've had several where the insurance came out to look
at it and they totaled the boat.

Speaker 1 (14:57):
The boat.

Speaker 9 (14:59):
They totaled the boat even had one It was brand
new boat. You know how they wrap him in plastic
at the factory that white.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
Uh yeah, yeah, heat.

Speaker 9 (15:09):
Shrank stuff and that way they can tow them down
the road. Well, when they got it here to the dealer,
they cut the heat shrink open, and of course it
just stunk.

Speaker 8 (15:19):
Like I mean, it was horrible.

Speaker 9 (15:22):
Yeah, and the boat was destroyed inside wiring. Like I said,
they'll go after a polsteret wiring.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
That's unreal.

Speaker 9 (15:29):
Anyways, they figure it got in at the factory somehow
and died on the way. But and this was a
I don't know about a sixty five thousand dollars boat
inboard outboard, and they told it they should get the
guy a brand new boat.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
All right, Well, at least I had a happy ending.
But man, that'd be a mess. Hey, Ralph, I got
to move on. I appreciate the call, though, This is
good stuff. Thanks for listening to us. Yep, all right,
Tom Joe, everybody else calling in, we'll get to you
when we come back.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
We're starting with.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
Raccoons, Yes, today, big old raccoons. In response to the
woman in Washington, that had one hundred raccoons show up
at her house and started swarming her because they wanted
her food. Call us at four row two five five
eight to eleven ten if you want to have fun
with this convo with us on news radio eleven ten kfab.

Speaker 1 (16:16):
Emery Sunger on news radio eleven ten kfab.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
We were talking in context, not just about raccoons specifically,
but there was a raccoon situation in Washington State where
almost one hundred raccoons went to this one woman's residency
because she was feeding a handful of them, and pretty
quickly that number multiplied to almost one hundred.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
And I'm just curious. I know a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
Raccoons have been a thing that people have had strange
encounters with here in Nebraska and Iowa as well. So
you can call us at four row two five five
eight to eleven ten and Tom is on the phone line. Tom,
welcome to the show today.

Speaker 8 (16:53):
You're doing a great job.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
Thanks.

Speaker 8 (16:55):
I had the privileges or fun time of raising two
little baby raccoons that were just a handful the tree
trimming crew was I'm out in Elkhorn in like two
hundred and thirty. It's right below Oak City, and the
tree trimming crew brought me these two little baby coons.

(17:18):
So I don't know why they didn't leave in there,
but now that they've touched them life. So my wife
and I took these two baby coons in. She's this
enamel over.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (17:28):
And we had a previous experience that was not good.
And let's just say because we were ignorant, didn't do
a couple things and those babies died. Oh okay, So
we were much wiser this time. And I don't know
how many readers want her listeners want to know this

(17:48):
or not, but little baby coons to urinate, their mother
has to lick them to get them started.

Speaker 1 (17:58):
Interesting, So how do you how do you do that?

Speaker 8 (18:01):
Well, we don't look them, I would be but get
you arm yourself with a couple of towels and uh,
and you rub their little organ and eventually they start urinating.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
So is that the thing that you learned from the
last time?

Speaker 8 (18:23):
Yeah, okay, yes, you know. And human beings have the
same problem when you get old.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
Well okay, and then then on top of that, Tom
I've I've read about this too, Like generally you do that,
but you don't keep them when they become adults, they're
ready to get back into the wild, right, So like
how long is no?

Speaker 9 (18:39):
No?

Speaker 5 (18:40):
No? No?

Speaker 8 (18:40):
Now, these two Oscar and Raleigh were our two little boys,
and and we raised them with eye droppers to feed them,
and then up to little doll baby bottles as they
got bigger and bigger, and uh when they got big
enough to eat solid. Our little guys they love gravy

(19:03):
train so it was always fun to watch them. And
we just put the uh WEL's dog food yeah in
the in their little feeding trays and put water in
it and mix it and they would sit there and
you know how they they're always licking their paws. I

(19:24):
found them to be very clean. Yeah, yeah, but ours
were domesticated.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
Okay, so you didn't release them?

Speaker 8 (19:32):
Uh No. I actually outside, as they got bigger, I
built what I called the coon condo, and uh it
was it was a cage, big cage, big enough to
put a tree branch in it for them to crawl
around on. And then a little shelter house. And eventually

(19:54):
they slept out in the coon condo. And then when
I'd get up to go to work, I'd let him out. Yeah,
And we had a big tree behind the kitchen with
a hole in it, and when they were younger, they
crawl up in there and hide out in that hole.
And then they eventually started playing around. And then one

(20:16):
day we had horses. I looked out and here's my
wife's prize horse that has a coon on his back
riding around. They were riding around the pen. But anyhow,
back to these old guys. We let him in the house.
I got hurt, shattered my leg, and my mom and

(20:37):
dad came out. This was four acres we were living
on and they came out and Oscar, who was the
pretty one, he went right to my dad and climbed
right up by my dad and my mom was just
going crazy.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
And they were like cats almost at that point, oh they.

Speaker 8 (20:57):
Were, you know, we bought a little as they eventually
here's what happened. Raleigh got out and messed around in
the horse pen and one of the horses kicked him.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
A yeah, and it kicked.

Speaker 8 (21:09):
Him in the tail and shoved the tail up into
his body. We grabbed him, ran him to the vet,
and the vet looked at him and says, there's nothing
we can do. Yeah, it would help him. So Raleigh
had to get put down, and we buried him out
on the farm. We call it the farm. After lived on,

(21:35):
Oscar got to be thirty some pounds.

Speaker 1 (21:37):
Oh wow.

Speaker 8 (21:38):
And we had him. We had him a full year
and one day. You know, we used to call him
like at six o'clock when we're fixing our dinner. We
used to call him at six and they would come runn.

Speaker 10 (21:51):
Into the back porch.

Speaker 8 (21:53):
Yeah, and that's where we feed him. And once in
a while we'd let him in the house. Well, if
you let him in the hike, like your other callers,
they're going to get into everything. They're curious buggers.

Speaker 1 (22:04):
Right.

Speaker 8 (22:05):
Oscar eventually did not come one day when we called
and we left food out, and one was two, then three,
and then we never saw Oscar. And we you know,
driving home, you'd want to see once in a while
at coon that gut hit.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
Yeah, and you're just wondering, Yeah, well this.

Speaker 8 (22:26):
Is like January, it's colder. Yeah, what outside and all that?
And we hear a beating on the back door.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
Oh, he showed back up.

Speaker 8 (22:37):
I opened the door and here's Oscar. He's looking he's
looking a little rugged himself, but he has the ugliest female.

Speaker 11 (22:46):
Ah.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
Yes, he he had to go. He had to go
find a mate. Hey, Tom, I got other callers coming in.
I gotta I gotta take them. But Tom, this is awesome.
Thanks so much for sharing your your experience with this.
This is really cool. And uh I love hearing stories
like this. Thanks so much for sharing. All right, thank you,
that's really cool. I love stuff like that. Teresa is
on a phone line four two five, five, eight eleven ten.

(23:07):
Hey Teresa, what's going on? Yes, sir, I mean ma'am.

Speaker 12 (23:10):
Sorry, that's okay. It's a common mistake. So we're talking raccoons.
I had to call in about this. We had. First
of all, I would like to address a caller that
said that most raccoons during the day are rabbit, and
that is a common myth. I looked it up on

(23:31):
several wildlife posts and that's I mean, it's like anybody
that thinks it's a nocturnal animal and they're out during
the day, they must be rabbit. But they have all kinds.
Sometimes they're looking for food for their family whatever.

Speaker 8 (23:44):
But that is a myth.

Speaker 12 (23:46):
But we had we live on the edge of town,
and we had three baby raccoons, siblings that were all
running around that I discovered in a tree one day.
And this has been a few years ago, but they
they came around every day. We would see him every
single day, just like trotting through our yard throwing up
our trees. I have a picture of one of them
in a tree above our granddaughter standing at the foot

(24:09):
of the tree. And the one, the one I named Ranger.
And he was my favorite, and I could actually he
would come and take corn out of my hand. I
would take ears of corn out every night at dusk
and he would be out in the street looking down
at our house waiting, so he would come and take

(24:31):
corn from me. And and then I mean this went
on for a few months and then they got bigger,
and I think they they kind of move on and
I'm more nocturnal.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yeah, and they have to probably make and stuff. Yeah yeah, yeah,
but that's awesome, Teresa, I haven't there's one in my neighborhood.
I see him at around dusk most of the time.
He's like walking across the street and I'm sure he's
just looking for some food and stuff. But that's a
I mean, that's the thing about this stuff is it
changes your life when you have an experience or an

(25:04):
encounter like this with you know, babies and you get
to see them kind of grow up. That's the kind
of thing about the bird feeder, and like the nesting
and the bird nest and stuff that I enjoy. You
kind of see the pairs kind of pair up, and
then you get to see the baby, and you're always
rooting for the baby to you know, become a fledgling
and be able to make it and stuff like that.
There's nothing cooler than actually seeing nature work right in

(25:26):
front of your eyes. So Teresa, this is awesome. Thanks
so much for sharing your story with us today.

Speaker 5 (25:31):
You bet.

Speaker 12 (25:31):
Thanks.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
Have a good day, Yeah, you too. Happy Friday to
everybody out there. If you've got a story about a
raccoon or a raccoon encounter or anything raccoon related, hey,
who knows, we'll talk to you about it.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
News Radio eleven ten kfab em Rie's songer on news
Radio eleven ten Kfab.

Speaker 11 (25:49):
I live over by Fremont, outside of Fremont, in an
area where it's not far from the river. But I
to control this squirrel population in my area. I have
a live trap that I you know, catch them and
take them to a different place. Across the river, so

(26:10):
they got to swim the river and corner in order
to get back to my place. But in the meantime,
I will catch coons probably once a week. Those things
are as afraid of humans as we are afraid of them.
But I will say one thing. You get a coon
in a wired trap, you leave them in there long enough.

(26:34):
I don't know if they have files for teeth, but
they will eat their way out of that wire cage.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
Yea they are.

Speaker 11 (26:43):
Get them within the first twelve hours or you know,
overnight they're gone and oh my gosh, they they will
just just destroy that trap.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (26:55):
Also, just FYI, I don't know if this is totally
but I was told what one time that a coon
is considered one of the most cleanest animals of because
they self clean themselves all the time.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
Yeah, and possums are the same way.

Speaker 2 (27:12):
And rats, honestly, like if they're not in the sewer,
the rat rats too, Like, if you find a rat,
they're in the same way.

Speaker 1 (27:19):
They get a bad rat.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
They do because of the TV shows we watch Rich
But I've done a lot of talking with nature people
and they're just like they're way cleaner than you think
they are because they keep themselves that way unless they're
in the sewer, of course.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
But that's that's good stuff.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
Rich appreciate you listening to us today. Let's go ahead
and go to spider Man. Spider Man, welcome to the show.
Spider Man from the Verry Farm.

Speaker 5 (27:44):
Hey, I'm how you doing. Long time they'll talked to.
Last time I was talking to you were talking about
Biden walking the plank down the Amazons down here. Yeah,
and he made it right off the edge coming up.
She's going to be a bode for next time. But anyway,
we were talking Viking. We need Viking and a place

(28:05):
to village to pillage and plunder. Right.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
Oh okay, yeah, this is about leif Errickson day.

Speaker 5 (28:09):
Yes, yes, I tried calling yesterday, but you're busy talking
sometimes you don't. Never shut up and let.

Speaker 1 (28:14):
Me talk, all right, Sorry, Bud?

Speaker 5 (28:16):
Yeah, yes, okay, it's your show. We'll let you do it.
I think it would be amazing if we had a
Viking day down at the farm, you know.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
What, Spider Man. Let's put a let's put a pin
in that. We're working on some ideas of some of
the logistics in house, because I think that there's something
there as well for that day and some maybe some
other days throughout the year. But we I mean, you
already have the infrastructure to have a party like that,
so we might have to be in touch about that.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
All right.

Speaker 5 (28:43):
Definitely definitely call us down there. If not come down
and go through the haunted house right now. It's scary
and the honor of the record.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
All right, man, thanks, thanks so much spider Man for
the call.

Speaker 5 (28:54):
Thank you bye.

Speaker 1 (28:55):
All right, Hey, we'll take more calls.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
A lot of people calling it about raccoons, want to
talk about racq UNEs. I like talking about raccoons, Okay,
although I haven't had as close as look, the closest
interaction I had was that Cooler situation when I was camping,
when I didn't even see them. I didn't even know
they were there, and they literally waited until I was
in the tent and then they opened my my cooler
instole on my hot dogs. Those little buggers a little bandits.

(29:19):
But anyway, yeah, four two five five eight eleven ten
is the number four two five five eight eleven ten.
And when we come back to the other side of
the hour, we're gonna have another keyword for you for
a chance to win one thousand bucks. We'll do more
raccoon talk. We got a Friday four that we're going
to do later on the show as well. There's just
a lot of fun stuff that we need to talk about.
You know, I want to talk about those wild wolves
in Colorado as well. We'll do all of that in

(29:39):
more Stick Around for Fun on News Radio eleven ten KFAB.
You'll have a chance to win one thousand dollars in
our nationwide keyword contest, So good luck to you. We
were talking about raccoons in the first hour because raccoons,
their pr firm is awesome. They got the cool little lies,
they have the cute faces, they have the little hands
that they like to carry stuff around and they can

(30:00):
with things. They have the long tail that's all striped
and everything. I think people generally find them to be
cool little animals. However, they are quite of a nuisance
and I read this story. I found this story. A
woman in Washington State had almost one hundred of them
show up at her property and they have been swarming
her for a few weeks. And now she's basically being
told by the Wildlife Department, Hey, you just gotta stop

(30:21):
feeding these raccoons because they're just going to keep multiplying
and swarming you and demanding food and becoming aggressive towards you. Well,
I wanted to talk about our own raccoon encounters that
we have here in Omaha and around the area. So
Tom's on the line. Tom, Welcome to the show. Thanks
for holding to me a part of the show today.
What's on your mind here?

Speaker 13 (30:41):
Well, I have a little I'm going to take a
little site step on you here because I want to
talk about skumps who are in the same family, but
they do have.

Speaker 1 (30:49):
Striped tail, Okay, yeah, yeah, sure.

Speaker 13 (30:52):
And so anyway, when I was a kid, now we're
talking fifty five years ago, things are a little different now.
My brother was swathing out in the field in the
alfalfa and he found a family of skunks and they
were about the size of little kittens, and so he
brought a couple of those home and we took them

(31:12):
to the vet, and the vet he's skunking for us.
I remember he charged his twenty five dollars for the
first one, but he only charged five dollars for the
second one because he was already.

Speaker 5 (31:23):
Stinky and stuff.

Speaker 13 (31:24):
So that's the way it was back in nineteen sixty something. Anyway,
these skunks were the most awesome. They lived in our
house for like three years probably they were He would
actually sit there watch.

Speaker 5 (31:39):
TV and you're lazy boy, and they would.

Speaker 13 (31:40):
Climb up and curl around your neck like a cat and.

Speaker 8 (31:44):
Go to sleep.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
Wow.

Speaker 13 (31:45):
And we called him Petunia and Ulyssen. He you for sure, yeah, yeah.
But the funnest thing was to take him into like
the grocery store or something like that, you know, and
people just thought you were nuts. But they were the
best best animals ever. And then uh, we had a

(32:07):
yard light, I remember, and the juneboats, those little juneboats.
You go out there by the yard light, you catch
those junebuggers. They like to chew on them like uh
like uh uh chrispy like potato chips or something was.
It was really a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
That's cool, Tom, Hey, Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, that's a
that's another animal. I think it's a bad rap that
their PR firm not so great raccoons. PR firm has
done a great job of making people like raccoons. Everybody's
afraid of a skunk. Uh, that's that's a good one.

Speaker 4 (32:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
I appreciate the call man. Thanks for listening. See we
talked about this. We talked about this with the Pepe
lapew A couple of weeks ago. Remember that conversation, I do. Hey, Yeah, yeah,
the skunks misunderstood in a lot of ways, but Pepe
was not misunderstood.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
His intentions were clear.

Speaker 14 (32:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:53):
Stacey's on our phone light at four O two five, five,
eight eleven ten. Hey Stacy, what's going on today?

Speaker 5 (32:58):
Yes?

Speaker 15 (32:58):
Hi?

Speaker 14 (33:00):
Was when I was little in Prescott, Arizona. We lived
up in the forest basically, and my big brother caught
a raccoon and we kept him on a leash for
a while, a long leash, and we named him band
It because he would steal everything shiny and we would
find silverware, anything shiny, anything, tin, whatever. He just had

(33:23):
a collection of it. And he was really sweet. And
while I was on holds, I remembered another. When I
was older, married in California by the beach, southern California,
my husband and I could hear noises up in our rafters.
So then we walk out in our back deck and
we look up and this raccoon head just pops out

(33:44):
from our roof. Realizing we needed.

Speaker 12 (33:46):
To patch our roof and it was pretty.

Speaker 14 (33:49):
Funny, and so then it was just so cute. And
then my husband put smelly chemicals up there, and not
too long after we saw the mama carry three of
our baby babies and just walk off our roof and
take off. But that was really Yeah, it's kind of
cool and they're so cool, they really are. But definitely

(34:09):
they get feisty if you if they want something, they
won't let go. That's the thing. That's how I'm just remembering.
That's how they used to catch raccoons is they would
put something really shiny in a bottle or something, and
the raccoon would reach down grab it and they don't
let go, and then they'd be caught in the bottle.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
With their fists and raccoon handcuffs.

Speaker 12 (34:35):
Yep, yep.

Speaker 14 (34:36):
So that's pretty cool, and I love the skunk story.
I can imagine they were adorable, but we got caught.
We got sprayed by skunks before our pets and everything.
And tomato juice actually does work, like doing a bath
with tomato juice. There you go saying, first skunks, it's
pretty bad, but I'd love to do skunk a skunk

(34:56):
and keep it that would be really I don't know.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
If the skunk would like too much, but yeah, I'm
with you, staycy. They're pretty fun animals. I appreciate you
calling in. Thanks for the stories today. Okay, she mentioned
the raccoon on the roof. I actually saw our neighborhood raccoon.
It could be like multiple of them, I'm not sure.
But we walk out our deck or we live on
a hill. You know, there's quite a bit of a
few hills through the exabent area, and our neighbor is

(35:22):
down the hill from us, our next door neighbor. So
like I walk out onto my my stairs to go
to the backyard, like in the little porch platform, and
it's like I'm eye level with the top of her roof.
I can see everything on top of her roof. And
one day there was just a raccoon just sitting there
like plump, like like it was early afternoon. He was
just sitting there and like cleaning his cleaning himself. I'm

(35:45):
sure he just slept there all night. And I was like,
I could literally just reach over there and grab that raccoon.
I didn't, but it's just like the sleeping on my roof,
Like hey, it's hard to know right now. And that's
the other thing that she was talking about. You don't
have holes big enough for raccoons to slide in and out,
so they just live inside, you know, the framework of
your home. Wilma's on our phone line of four O two, five, five,

(36:08):
eight to eleven ten. Wilma, welcome to the show. What's
on your mind?

Speaker 15 (36:11):
I know a lot of raccoon store. I don't know
where to start. I got bitten by one when I
went to feed my cat in her cat house. I
reached into the bowl and got chumped.

Speaker 5 (36:25):
We had.

Speaker 6 (36:30):
Hope.

Speaker 1 (36:30):
We're losing you, Wilma. Yeah, we're losing you. Wilma.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
Sorry about that. But she's talked about, you know, getting
bit by raccoon. I wonder how that ended up.

Speaker 3 (36:42):
I think Fred Flintstone forgot to pay the phone. Oh
come on, hey, come on, come on. Just her name
is Wilma. Come on.

Speaker 5 (36:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
So we'll put Wilman back on hold. We'll see if
that connection figures itself out. While we're waiting, let's go
to Teresa. He so, welcome to our show today. What's
going on?

Speaker 4 (37:03):
Well, all the calls you've been getting everybody, ah ooh, Ooh,
raccoon so cute, so cute. So here's my theory on raccoon.
You know what a dead raccoon is on a highway?
What's that justifiable homicide?

Speaker 15 (37:16):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (37:17):
Why is that?

Speaker 4 (37:19):
Well, if anybody, the old timers ever watched the Red
Green Show, they would agree with me. They are destructive there. Yeah,
they're cute to look at. So it's a polar bearer
in Grizzly, But you don't fiddle with them in front
of me. Got bit. They do carry reebies even though

(37:40):
the lash is Oh that's true. Oh, yes, it is true.
You gotta be careful with wildlife people. Yeah, they're cute,
but leave them alone. Just leave them alone. You wouldn't
go up and pet a mountain lion. That's all I
gotta say.

Speaker 2 (37:56):
That's a good point there, Tori say, hey, thanks for
the call.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
I appreciate you. Listen.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
Okay, So to address this her points, she's right. I
mean polar bears. You watch polar bear like swimming around
and people like, oh no, it's swimming. It looks like
it's having such a hard time with you know, the
changing climate. You should look at the polar bear population
and how much it's grown over the last decade up
there in Northern Canada.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
Really.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
Yeah, they are reporting like forty percent increases in polar bears,
which for the people of Northern Canada not great. But
yeah they look great. They look cool. Guess what if
you were in it, if you were anywhere near its
intended target, that polar bear would destroy you. You would
be destroyed. Grizzly bear is same. Now, raccoon's not going

(38:44):
to destroy you, but yeah, it could bite you, it
could have this thing. I am of the camp and
I love these stories, and I'm glad that these stories exist,
and I'm glad that there are people that have the
ability to rescue animals that need rescuing. Right, we had
one guy talking about the skunks that you know, they
grabbed in the sixties and deskunked them and stuff, and
they were great pets for them and stuff. Yeah, that's

(39:06):
just not something that would generally happen now because we
know more about this stuff and there are more rules
about who, like what kind of animals you can bring
in as pets or domesticate, and what the exceptions would
be for that. There's a there's a fight. I mentioned this,
there's a fight over a beaver, like a baby beaver
that was rescued and has been living in somebody's house

(39:27):
while it reaches maturity because they didn't have a mom,
right Like, I follow several people who have different rescues
of different varieties of animals. Leave that stuff to the experts,
and it's probably not the best idea to be actively
feeding the wildlife. I'm the kind of guy that'll put
water out for wildlife. Like I'll put like a bowl
of water when it's really hot out, Like I'll put

(39:49):
a bowl of water outside for you know, any neighborhood
animals like the possums or the raccoons or the cats
or whatever, and they can, you know, drink out of it.
Sometimes even birds will you know, drink out of something
like that. I'll do that, But I'm not putting actively
like food out to try to attract these animals. I
just think that they I want them to do what

(40:11):
they do, and I can observe them from afar. If
you have a problem with some of these animals, I
think all of them. There are different ways to handle them,
and some of it has to do with your own
personal infrastructure or your yard or your trash and the
way you have your trash or for the instance, like
we talked about that the roof, like there was a
raccoon in that in one of our callers roofs and

(40:34):
Stacy said that there was a raccoon in a roof
and stuff like. That's not great. It's not great. They're
looking for places to have shelter. They're not thinking about it.
It's like bats too, right, Like bats might find your
house to be the best place for shelter because there's
a room in your siding somehow that they can find
a way to get in there. My answer to that

(40:54):
is put the bath house outside the house. And if
they know that there's a bathouse outside the house, and
I'm going to try to get into your house, that's
worked for everybody I've talked to that's done that.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
So I don't know.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
Something to keep in mind if you want to call in,
you can't four L two five five eight, eleven ten
News Radio eleven ten KFAB What are you thinking about
on this raccoon Friday?

Speaker 16 (41:11):
Well, I can't believe you've been talking about raccoons for
over an hour and no one's mentioned the Alpine inn
up north of Omaha.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
I did get a couple of emails. To be fair, Chris,
I haven't read any of my emails on the air,
but I did get a couple of people online sharing
some of that stuff with me.

Speaker 16 (41:25):
It's a great place to stake kids. They got great
big picture windows. You get to tell why the window.
And they fed the scraps from their excellent fried chicken
out there. Usually around five o'clock or so, or it's
getting dark, the raccoons come out, and it's extraordinarily entertaining.
It's awesome, especially if you go for little kids, you know,
be entertained by it. I suspect if you're talking about

(41:48):
how this woman, you know, raccoon heard increase up to
one hundred, I wonder if maybe they you would do
a little artificial colleaut of they're herd a door to
keep advantageable up there.

Speaker 10 (41:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
Well, and that's my thing too, is the it sounds
like the plan is for this, because that was my
first thought is okay, so where are they going to go?
She lives in a very highly wooded area, it looks like,
so it's not that crazy to me to think that
they were all somewhere close by already and just a
handful had you know, been taking advantage of the food

(42:18):
that they found.

Speaker 16 (42:19):
Then we're got yeah exactly.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
And then and then you know, it spread very quickly
that this is a place that you can get food
for these raccoons. And it sounds like they're just kind
of dispersing themselves as she has stopped feeding them. So
I think the plan is to let them go back
into the whatever pocket of the woods that they came from.
But if they are sticking around her house, she doesn't
seem to mind a manageable amount of them. But I

(42:42):
just don't know how you could possibly go back to
feeding a manageable amount and not expect one hundred of
them to show back up again. I think she's got
herself a little bit of a conundrum there.

Speaker 16 (42:50):
Well, I wonder, I wonder why the Alpine in doesn't
get a hundred of them them?

Speaker 2 (42:54):
Well, and I would be my thing is is there
like a big forest nearby?

Speaker 8 (42:59):
Oh yeah, it's very.

Speaker 16 (42:59):
It's very it's very wooded area. It's up Ponka Hills
kind of very.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
And then my other thing would be, is there any
natural predators for them? Like you know, dogs, mountain lions, wolves, coyotes.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
Kind of thing.

Speaker 9 (43:11):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
That would be the only thing that I could think
of that would keep that population at least somewhat manageable.
But you're right, Chris, that'd be interesting. Or in some case,
maybe she just didn't notice how much some of these
families had just kind of multiplied, and she didn't notice,
and then all of a sudden they started shown up
at the same time.

Speaker 1 (43:26):
I don't know, but yeah, they have. They have babies
every year.

Speaker 16 (43:32):
Alpine Inn has good food, fried chicken, and entertainment, so.

Speaker 1 (43:36):
I love it.

Speaker 8 (43:36):
Check it out.

Speaker 1 (43:37):
Thanks, Chres, appreciate the cult today. Thanks for listening.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
Let's go to Tom Tom's on a full line four two, five, five,
eight eleven ten. What do you think, Tom?

Speaker 10 (43:46):
Thanks talking to you. Yeah, well, you like to feed
the birds like I do. And I'm right now out
of breath because from replacing fence posts. I live out
here in West Toma, and the coons have been coming
in the yard going after my bird feeders, and my
dog chases them, comes up on the fence.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
Mmm.

Speaker 10 (44:05):
So they not only destroyed a few bird feeders, but
they come from eight o'clock at night till about six
o'clock in the morning. Yeah, oh what I did.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 10 (44:17):
There's all my bird feeders. I put on a mixture
of basoline and a hot pepper called Genghis Khan braid.

Speaker 1 (44:26):
Uh huh uh huh.

Speaker 10 (44:28):
So when they go up to the on my trail
cameras lately, they'll reach out for that bird feeder and
once they touch that vasoline, they skid down a lot
of the yard.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
Right well, and in that the bird seed. It's that's
the that's the play for a lot of people.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
You know.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
I had a squirrel problem when I would live in
the Moine and I would feed the birds. There's a
walnut tree right next to my house there, so the
scrolls were living in and around the walnut tree because
I love the walnuts, and in turn, they were always
raiding my bird feeder until I got that spicy seed.
And man, after that they were like they were done
with the seed. They wanted nothing to do with it.

Speaker 10 (45:07):
Yeah, that's what I'll do the coons. But that doesn't
help me with my fun posts.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
Yeah, well, good luck with that fish post there, Tom.
That sounds like I got pain in the butt.

Speaker 10 (45:16):
Yeah all right, take care yep.

Speaker 2 (45:18):
So yeah, thanks for the thanks for the call today. Yeah,
I've heard stories of like they like the bird seeds
so much, and depending on where you have your bird feeder,
they'll just carry it off. They'll just haul like they'll
pick it up and they can lift, you know, a
decent amount. My bird feeder is a little too big,
I think for them to carry. But and they'll just
carry it away from you, like they'll they'll take their

(45:38):
bird feeder where they came from. A lot of people
in the email as well talking about raccoons. This has
been a really fun conversation. And I did not expect
to talk about raccoons for an hour and a half,
but you know what, you kind of go with the flow.
I found that that story to be so interesting, the
woman in all the hundred raccoons or whatever, but it is,

(46:00):
it is pretty interesting, to say the least. We'll take
one more call here before he hit the bottom of
the hour and kind of change the vibe on the
show a little bit. Richard's on the phone line. Richard,
thanks for the call today. What's on your mind?

Speaker 7 (46:10):
Well, I was a coon hunter for years, and coons
at one time was worth fifty dollars apiece for what
what I wanted everybody to know. What I wanted everybody
to know was that raccoon skunks Bossum's and there might
be another one or two that Carrie Rabi's and could
never show symptoms. And if you get fit by an

(46:33):
animal that has rabies, there's a ninety nine percent you're
going to die. And if she's got a hunter coons,
she could have had a really nice fur coat and
even a Daniel boone.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
Yeah, I think she liked the raccoons, so she just
didn't know what to do when they started like swarming
her like I don't know's it's like a bee, like
a beehive almost. It's just like she said, she would
pull into her driveway and there they were, or they
would just surround her and they would just pester her
as she would be walking from her car to her house. Yeah,
I don't know how. And she ended up having a

(47:06):
call nine to one one to get help because she
was too afraid to walk outside. But Richard appreciate the
call today, thanks for the thanks for the info, and
we appreciate you taking part in our conversation. I would
like to, you know, not to discredit anything that he
said there, but I'm I've talked to people about possums.
Possums really don't really carry rabies and can't really transmit

(47:28):
them because of their lower body temperature. That doesn't mean
that that's not one that's one hundred percent fool proof
on that, but it's important again to reiterate, don't be
messing and metaling around with wild animals without an expert,
regardless I mean, and I would. I'm not a big
feeder of wild animals except for the birds who fly

(47:51):
come and go, and you can monitor their migration. So
I hope anybody listening to this, even if we can
like love watching the raccoons or we enjoy seeing raccoons
and all that stuff in different wildlife, let's not I
don't want anybody to think that I'm endorsing the idea
of feeding these animals and keeping them around, Like if
they want to be around because of the shelter that

(48:13):
your house or your porch or something provides, or they
want to be around because there is something natural for
them to eat, like mice, or you know, in the
case of like a possum, they can eat some mice,
or a snake can eat mice or spiders or stuff
like Sure, like that's fine, but actively feeding them, you're

(48:33):
kind of setting yourself up to get yourself in some trouble.
It's three twenty nine. We're gonna move on to a
different conversation.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
This one.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
I wanted to mention about those wolves in Colorado. We'll
get to that. And I have an update on that
Christmas tree that I saw in the back of my
house the other day that I mentioned. I got an
update on that, and I'll tell you about that too
on news radio eleven to ten KFAB. So it's a
video of a raccoon. You see the raccoon, Yeah, and
then what is he doing?

Speaker 1 (48:58):
Oh he's you.

Speaker 3 (49:00):
Oh poor guy. He put the cotton candy in the
water to clean it. Yeah, and then it's evolved.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
Keep watching. They gave him a second one.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
Don't do it, he did it.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
Oh, but he got a taste of his cotton candy
and now and now he's looking for it. So they
they send him. They put a third one in there,
and then he learned his last said Eddie. But they're smart, man, Yeah,
they're smart. That's why I don't like him.

Speaker 1 (49:24):
It's too smart.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
They can figure out squirrels too. Did have you watched
the videos of Mark Roper is like an engineer, but
he makes YouTube videos. He made like a American Ninja
warrior course in his backyard for squirrels.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
Nice.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
So they had to figure out how to get to
the walnuts. Like he put a big old thing of
walnuts in the middle of his yard, but he put
like different ways for them to like have to figure
out how to get there. It's incredible. It's incredible to
watch them figure it out. They they know how to
do it, Like they know how to resolve and fix up,
you know, whatever issue they have. It's pretty interesting. I

(50:02):
wanted to mention this. There was a I mentioned this
months ago when this happened. But in Colorado they released
a few wild wolves and reintroduced wolves into the wild.
This was something that the state had to vote on,
and people voted them to come back. Although many livestock

(50:24):
groups said, hey, this is going to be bad for
our livestock if you bring these wolves back, and these
wolves are going to be attacking livestock. Now, the reason
that the wolves would be there is for the same
reason that they reintroduced a pack of wolves into Yellowstone,
and that really was to control some of the population

(50:45):
of like deer and other hoofstock like that, and in turn,
when that happened, everything else was able to stay in
balance and kind of blossom and bloom, and it kind
of returned some order over a twenty year period to Yellowstone.
So this was kind of one of the things that
they were doing here, and they calling it the Copper

(51:06):
Creek wolf Pack. Well, unfortunately, the packs adult male. There
was an adult male, an adult female, and then four pups,
and they had to recapture them, and the packs adult
male was captured but died in captivity due to injuries
that it was that they had before it was captured.

(51:26):
And one of the reasons is because the male adults
tell me if they surprises you, Matt. The male adult
wolf went after livestock and probably got into a fight
with some livestock. Multiple people on ranches have complained and
said that they have seen this male wolf going after
some of these animals. So they had to recapture them

(51:48):
and they were going to reintroduce them to a different area.
The male passed away, but they had they are not
killing off this entire pack. They're going to figure out
and get the the other pups and then the female
healthy again. And get them back out into a different area. Now,
I don't know if this is going to work.

Speaker 5 (52:08):
Now.

Speaker 2 (52:08):
Ranching groups say they want the wolfpack to be gone
and done. They were originally from Oregon. They were captured
in Oregon and moved to Colorado with the idea that
it was going to restore some conservational balance. Although they
are the fears that they were messed with the wife
the livestock, and they have ranching groups including the Middle

(52:31):
Park Stock Growers Association in Colorado, and their president Tam
Richard said, we know these wolves have been part of
the killing, even though Colorado Parks and Wildlife say otherwise.
In a few years, we're going to have to remove
these pups when they get older.

Speaker 1 (52:46):
They say.

Speaker 2 (52:47):
The owner of calves that have been killed were compensated
by the state for the animal's market value up to
fifteen thousand dollars, and even wildlife advocates say they shouldn't
be capturing and relocating the pups and the mother because
it could mess with their survival as they continue to
try to find food sources. So it's not going so well.

(53:08):
So my big thing is these are like they want
an ecological balance in the area. They want to do
it with nature. Introducing wolves has worked in places like
Yellowstone where guess what's not in Yellowstone, matt Yellowstones and
livestock and livestock right, and people don't have ranches on

(53:29):
Yellowstone specifically, where these wolves were let go where there's
a ton of the year makes sense.

Speaker 1 (53:36):
Yeah, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
They sent this wolfpack to try to maintain an ecological balance.
Everybody knew what was going on. They have a plan here,
They understand what the risks were when they did this.
Just the unfortunate reality is it was never going to
work the way that they wanted it to, and it
hasn't so far. So we'll keep you posted on this
because I find it to be very interesting. The male

(53:59):
passed away. They didn't kill it. It probably died from
injuries when it was in the like it got into
a fight with something as it was going and trying
to you know, take down some livestock instead of going
out and doing what it was supposed to do, which again,
this is a wild animal. It's going to do what
it wants to do anyway. But this is a thing

(54:19):
that we're talking about for you know, nature is going
to nature and when humans try to kind of get
back and mess with nature in some ways, it doesn't
always work to the way that we'd like it to work.
So we'll see what happens to those wolves and see
what happens in Colorado when they decide if they're going
to be able to get that ecological balance through these

(54:41):
wolves are not.

Speaker 1 (54:43):
It is three forty five.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
Got to give you an update on something that I
saw earlier this week. Somebody behind my house has a
giant Christmas tree up outside, and last night I looked out.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
I forgot the.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
Last couple of nights to see if I could still
see it on were they testing something? I will give
you an update on that next. On news radio eleven
to ten KFA Bight, I said this was absurd and
I really needed to investigate. I had different people say, yeah,
I mean we don't decorate until after Thanksgiving, which I
think is totally appropriate. And I had some people say,
what do you care so much? And it's just like, hey,
maybe you should just not take this so seriously, was

(55:20):
my response to those people, because I really don't like
it really doesn't matter to me. It's just like something
to talk about, right, and it's interesting and people have
some strong opinions about this.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (55:30):
Some people want it to be Christmas every day. Other
people want it to be Christmas once a year so
that it doesn't get tainted by the everyday in us
of life.

Speaker 2 (55:38):
Right, it stays special for the time of the year.
I looked out the I remember to look out the
back window last night, Matt. Yeah, what do you think
I saw they take it down? Nope, it was there
and it was even morel it up than it was
a couple of days ago.

Speaker 14 (55:52):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (55:52):
And you can see there are some snowman inflatables underneath
of it. Now, okay, this person is in yeah, all in,
no going back.

Speaker 10 (55:59):
Now.

Speaker 2 (56:00):
This is like forget Halloween, forget Thanksgiving, forget everything in between.
It is Christmas time at that house. What's the temperature today, Well,
you know it's going to get to the mid eighties.
Right now, it's eighty four, so we were just about
topped out. We'll see how warmer we get and then
it does cool down a little.

Speaker 1 (56:18):
Bit in the next couple of days.

Speaker 2 (56:19):
Yeah, I guess a little bit more fall feeling. But
today with this Christmas tree up or across the street
and these snow man inflatables, and stuff that appear to
be underneath of it. It's sitting there in eighty five
degree weather. It's I mean, they're in it. Yeah, that
thing is going to be on every single day for
the next.

Speaker 1 (56:38):
Two and a half months. They're locked in. It is
Christmas season where they are now.

Speaker 2 (56:45):
I get that. A lot of people called in and said, hey,
you never know what's going on. Maybe somebody's got a
turnable illness and this is a favorite thing for them
to do. They don't know if they're going to be
able to do this. We did talk to some people
that said, hey, we actually always decorate in like September
two oalk, but we don't turn anything on. And then
we go on like a month and a half long
vacation because they're retired or whatever, and they come back

(57:06):
and then all their stuff's already up for the Christmas season.
It's like, Okay, well that makes sense. I don't know
if any of that's applicable to this house. I feel
like there's precedent to be worried about this, though, because
over our lifetime, over the last thirty years, we've watched
Christmas slowly creep closer, like that dog sitting next to

(57:26):
you when you're eating a snack and you look over
and it's looking the other way. But then you return
to your snack, that dog just slowly creeps closer to
that bowl of popcorn. We've been so worried about global warming.
What we didn't recognize is that we've just been slowly
letting Christmas take over every other holiday of the year
and just getting in. The Christmas season gets longer and longer,
to the point where it's killed off Black Friday, it's

(57:49):
killing off Thanksgiving, it's killing off Halloween one at a time.

Speaker 1 (57:54):
What's next? Labor Day? Labor Day?

Speaker 2 (57:57):
Did we go Christmas caroling? All of a sudden, I
was just how many years away are we from that happening?

Speaker 6 (58:02):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (58:02):
Like, how long away are we? Tell?

Speaker 3 (58:04):
Labor Day being the holiday where you put up your lights,
it's an appendage to Christmas an it's a Labor Day tradition.
Put up the lights, the tree, forego the grilling. Oh yeah,
break out the knog.

Speaker 2 (58:16):
I mean, I mean Fourth of July like Christmas themed
fireworks or do we replace fireworks with you know, frankincense
or something. I don't know what you do with frankinsense.
What's anybody done with frankinsense? Like, have you heard anybody
since the three wise men doing anything with frankinsense? Frankensnse
or Mr quite frankly right right right murr and frankinsense?

(58:38):
Like the pr firms for those two, Like where have
they been? It felt like that's a golden opportunity, no
pun intended for like a way to elevate your branding
and for people to like make rings or you know,
apparel out of you. Where's that been? What do people

(58:58):
use frame in? Since four? Aromatherapy calming scent religious rituals
historically been used as an incense during spiritual ceremonies. Skincare
frankincense oil is sometimes using cosmetic products for its potential
anti aging properties. So it doesn't look like you can

(59:20):
actually make jewelry out of this, But it's like a
thing that what wise man is giving the newborn Messiah
an essential oil? Did that guy get trolled the whole
way home? It's like, yeah, Ricky decided he was gonna
just you know, pack along some frankincense and handed to
this newborn child that had nothing to do with it. Oh,
the baby's crying because it's hung Gray, let's go ahead

(59:41):
and just put some of this frankinsense on its foot.

Speaker 3 (59:43):
Well, have you ever heard Jim Gaffigan's bit about the
absurdity of the traditions around Christmas? I mean, like bringing
a live tree into your house? Like did that get
just started by some drunk guy who's just like I.

Speaker 1 (59:57):
Put trees put in the middle of the leving crop.
Wi polites on.

Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
On on it and then everyone's like, Okay, well at
least he's in a good mood today, so okay, we'll
go along with it, Pops.

Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
I mean the first person to do that. I mean,
I'm sure the traditions hundreds of years old, so, you know,
and it stimulates the economy because there's Christmas tree farms.
So I mean, what are you trying to do, like
kill off the Christmas tree farms?

Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
Yeah, that's my secret agenda.

Speaker 3 (01:00:23):
No, I just you know, if you really think about it,
like you're you know, like, here's another one, Like I
don't know some of these foods that we eat, like
who tried those first?

Speaker 1 (01:00:34):
You know, how did we get to cheese?

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
Well, there are people out there that argue that, you know,
cheese in and of itself, is you know there are
different ways, Like you know, we people think about this,
humans drink cow's milk. What other animal drinks the milk

(01:00:56):
of something else. We're not drinking human milk. I mean
babies do, but we aren't. There's not like a farm
of you know, you know what I'm saying of, Like
you know, how to get milk from a from.

Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
Cage free, cage free, great rass fed, grass fed free.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
Roaming women news providing milk.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
Pasteurized.

Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
Yeah, I mean it is like when you think about
it in that context of like, yeah, the dairy industry
not to like uproot anybody who's in the dairy industry.
It's just kind of like, it is kind of odd
when you think about it that we just kind of
like drink cow's milk and eat butter made of that

(01:01:41):
milk and eat cheese made of that milk.

Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
I don't know, I don't know. It isn't weird.

Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
If Friday the forest coming up, New's ready to have it.
Take KFA b