Raccoon Terrorizes Neighborhood, Sends Multiple People to the ER: ‘Raccoons?! What’s Going On?’

Hell hath no fury like a mother defending her babies — including a mother raccoon. An Oregon neighborhood has been learning this firsthand as residents report being attacked by a mother raccoon, resulting in multiple E.R. visits and pet dogs being injured.

Jordan Barbeau told local outlet KGW that she first noticed the family of raccoons, a mother and four babies, near her home in Northwest Portland in July. But the mother proved to be dangerous after she attacked Barbeau’s husband and two dogs while they were out on a walk one night.

“No warning, no hissing, no growl, it just came right out,” Barbeau told KGW. By the time her husband had been able to kick the raccoon away, it had sliced open the ear of one of her dogs and left puncture wounds in the other’s leg.

Now, the mother has struck again, attacking a woman and her dog on the night of Aug. 1. Video footage captured from Barbeau’s house showed the woman screaming and the dog barking during the 18-second-long attack.

“Not only was her dog bitten but she was bitten on the leg at least in two spots,” Barbeau told KGW. “When she went to the ER they actually told her that she was not the first person to come in for a raccoon bite just that week.”

In an effort to warn her neighbors about the attacks, Barbeau has made a sign on a street tree hoping to catch people’s attention. Some people, like neighbor Devan Freeman, could not believe what they were reading, “That's ridiculous,” she told KGW. “Raccoons?! What's going on?”

But the residents feel quite stuck about the situation. According to KOIN 6, Barbeau said that Multnomah County Animal Services and the Portland Police Bureau do not deal with raccoons, and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) will euthanize the animals, but will not relocate them due to research about disease spread and the difficulty raccoons have adjusting to new habitats.

“We called around to see who might be able to help remove them from the neighborhood and it’s just a dead end every time,” Barbeau told KOIN 6.

The Barbeaus have hired a professional wildlife control company to put catch-and-release traps around their property, and ODFW has begun offering raccoon traps to the residents in the area.

Now, all the residents can do is wait. ODFW recommended that residents avoid walking their dogs at night and leaving out things that may attract raccoons, like food waste. The department said it is common for raccoons to become aggressive toward dogs, especially when they have babies.