Raccoon incursions can feel violating and frustrating. When you have an infestation in your home, you may feel like you’d do just about anything to get rid of it. You should avoid lethal removal methods, however, as these are both unethical and inefficient. Before you call wildlife control in Montreal, consider these downsides of lethal removal.

Killing Isn’t Cheaper Than Humane Methods

A lot of people think trapping and poisoning are the simplest and cheapest ways to get rid of pests. This is an easy assumption to make. Since you don’t have to deal with live animals if you’ve poisoned them, removing them is as simple as carrying them out for disposal.

What most people don’t realize is that trapping and baiting can take weeks. Raccoons are incredibly intelligent and are often suspicious of foreign food sources or strange objects. When they aren’t actively avoiding baits, they sometimes take only partial portions. They may suffer no harm at all, or they may die after an extended period of suffering.

Most creatures aren’t courteous enough to die in convenient places. When suffering from poisoning, animals often wedge themselves between walls or deep into crawl spaces. It can be very time-consuming and expensive to retrieve their bodies.

You May Hurt the Wrong Animal

If you have a dog, a cat, or another free-roaming pet, this alone is enough reason not to use lethal raccoon removal for your pests. Even if you try to set traps in places inaccessible to your pets, they may still find them. Poisons are even more dangerous because pets can ingest harmful substances when they investigate the bodies of dead pests.

You always look after your pets’ health and safety, so why would you introduce unnecessary dangers into your home? Even if you could guarantee your companion’s safety, why would you want to harm another, similarly intelligent creature?

Raccoons Are Good for the Environment

Raccoons and other mid-level carnivores aren’t mere pests. They provide important ecosystem services, including killing bugs and rodents that pose serious threats to people. Raccoons help to control mice and rats, but they also feed on a large variety of other prey species. 

Without these and other similar predators, rodents would quickly breed out of control. This would spread disease, harm indoor food supplies, and create an expensive hassle.

Killing Raccoons Is Unethical and Sometimes Illegal

While it isn’t illegal in Canada to trap or bait raccoons, it is illegal to hunt or trap them without a permit. Laws related to urban and suburban trapping are designed to prevent domestic animals from falling victim to lethal capture methods. Other laws about other species are intended to protect threatened or endangered animals.

The current legislation doesn’t explicitly account for the suffering of wild creatures, but you should. Both trapping and baiting can cause extreme pain that can last from hours to weeks. Trapping can leave a mother animal incapable of caring for its young as each slowly starves to death.

How To Get Rid of Raccoons

The best way to get rid of your unwanted guests is to expel those present and prevent them from returning. Raccoons are experts at finding their way through tiny breaches in your home’s exterior. You may not even be able to see entry points. 

Since humane removal takes skill and specialized equipment, you shouldn’t attempt it on your own. An experienced wildlife technician can find potential entry points, locate trapped juveniles, and place them in a heated box for their mother to return to later.

For Canada’s most experienced humane removal team, contact Skedaddle Humane Wildlife Control today. We’ll answer any questions you have and give you a quote fast.