May 28, 2009 nature attacks my goldfish pond!

about 2 weeks ago i reopened my goldfish pond.
now mind you it is not very big. aprox. 2-3 feet in diameter, 1-1/2 feet deep with a small waterfall.

we have a 4" fence around the entire yard and live in the suburbs.

anyway a week ago i had just mucked it out and retrieved the fish from a friends greenhouse pond. they had grown to the size of small "sunnys" . now i have hiding places for these fish ( a small ceramic pedestal ledge) plus several imitation waterlily's and a live water hyasent as well as a few underwater anacurius plants.
i should have known if they weren't comming up when i put some food in that smething was "spooking" them but, i fell for the ol' getting used to the surroundings excuse.

well today i went out to check on them after breakfast as usuall and the pond had been ravaged by a racoon. this critter took out the fish and threw them on the ground a few feet away as well as placing a imatation water lilly next to them. he ate 1-1/2 fish and left the rest on the ground were i found them dead! true i had let the water level go down to a foot due to splash from the waterfall and since it is 100 feet out back i usually only refill it once a week.

now i have delt with these critters before.

2 years ago when a racoon got a bit to friendly with my garbadge cans next to the house and didn't chase away to while i clanked a spoon hitting a mettlel pot from the window above i hired an extermanator for 100.00 to catch and remove the critter before he moved into my house and took over the refeg and the remote control for the tv.
he was about 40 lbs and old but smart and agile. the extermanator says they looooove sardeens
well yeppers that's true.

last year i had the extermanator back when the water lillies got tossed out of the pond. and sure enough we caught a teenager racoon and later an adult racoon.

many years ago we had some kids on the next block that jumped the fence and spear fished ruining the liner (these kids were't the brightest and i found that they had dumped the bait box at a sporting goods store and came back asking if the owner had any more fish while the police where there LOL)

but we have endured.

now you can say poor racoon but i say my gold fish have rights too!

so for now i once again have chicken wire over the pond (this spoils it for all the other anamials that come for a drink there) and a trap set.

so although summer is not officially here yet, if i am batteling the racoons ... summer has begun!

hugs to all
Diana