"Living with Wildlife in the Pacific Northwest"

Original Title: "A Book about Our Less-Than-Human Neighbors"

Copyright © 2004 by Jim Mahood. All rights reserved.

Although I live in the city of Olympia in Washington state, I regularly see wildlife in my own backyard or within a few blocks. Early in the morning, I’ve seen deer leaping across roads, families of rabbits and raccoons, opossums, quail, geese, seagulls, many other birds, and, of course, squirrels. Some of these sightings are truly amazing to one who lived most of his life before 1997 in the Big City.

A new book addresses this specific amazement. It is Russell Link’s Living with Wildlife in the Pacific Northwest. Link is an urban wildlife biologist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

His book “is all about coexisting with the animals commonly found in gardens, ponds, attics, crawl spaces, and other places where humans and wildlife cross paths throughout Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia.”

Link writes about 68 species of mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Mammals include badgers, bats, cougars, elk, mink, moose, opossums, shrews, skunks, voles. Birds include eagles, great blue herons, hawks, owls, woodpeckers. Reptiles and amphibians include frogs, lizards, snakes, turtles.

I was drawn to the book because it devotes an entire chapter of nine pages to the subject of raccoons, creatures I knew next to nothing about until they paid my wife and me an unforgettable visit.

Our four marauders were burly yet fast. Link says adult males can measure 3 feet long, including their bushy tails, and weigh as much as 60 pounds. As fast as their weight allowed, our band of brigands sprinted single file across the backyard.

When we appeared at the window, they saw us immediately but showed no concern other than passing curiosity. Their boss paused momentarily, rose majestically on his rear legs, delicately extended his two front paws each with five tiny toes, and peered at us through his bandit mask. Then he and the rest of his cronies vanished into the shrubs.

“How cute,” my wife, Kristine, purred. But if you’ve ever cleaned up after four adult raccoons, you know how fast the cuteness wears off.

“Raccoon droppings may carry a parasite that can be fatal to humans,” Link writes. Raccoons should never be fed or encouraged in other ways to hang around. The best way to get rid of them is to make sure you don’t leave any food or garbage exposed for them to eat. I made sure of that—and so far so good—but if it doesn’t work, the book has additional steps to take.

Living with Wildlife should appeal not only to animal lovers but also to those who consider them a nuisance and are searching for effective, humane, and legal ways to deal with them.

The book closes with 11 outstanding appendixes, which provide clear information about trapping wildlife; evicting animals from buildings; hiring a wildlife damage-control company; state, provincial, and federal contact information; and other valuable resources.

Living with Wildlife was published in July 2004 by the University of Washington Press in association with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Running 350 pages long and measuring 8.5 by 11 inches, this paperback is a big boy.

The book is available directly from the press (http://www.washington.edu/uwpress) for $26.95 per copy, plus $5.00 shipping and handling. In addition, your reviewer found copies for sale in bookstores and copies to borrow in his local public library.

Russell Link also wrote Landscaping for Wildlife in the Pacific Northwest.