Mother and Child Reunion
I don’t know what drew my attention to the tree: a movement, a rustling in the leaves, the feeling that I was being watched.
We were walking along the greenway at Battleground National Military Park about 5:30 p.m. on Saturday. The sun was shining on the trail, but it was twilight in the grove of trees to the left. The raccoon was on a branch halfway up the tree. With her paws, she was trying to still the young raccoon in front of her.
Raccoons give birth in March or April often in a hollow tree or burrow. They can have between one to eight cubs, but usually have two or three.
Wildlife rehabilitators in North Carolina are barred by the state from caring for raccoons because of the fear of rabies. At the center where I volunteer, everyone who deals with mammals is required to have a rabies shot, but the state still deems raccoons, fox and bats too dangerous to rehabilitate.
In August the state began distributing rabies-vaccine laced baits to parts of Buncombe, Hayood, Madison, Mitchell and Yancey counties.
So far this year, seven cases of rabies have been reported in Guilford County.
Rabies was the last thing on my mind as I watched the mother and her baby. The baby was at an age when it had probably started exploring its world. The mother no doubt was trying to restrain it, the way mothers of most species do when their children begin to wander. What struck me as I watched is that even though the mother must have been frightened to be discovered, she didn’t abandon her baby. She ran her paws over its back the way one would to calm a fussing child.
I could have stood there for hours watching the two. But not wanting to cause any more stress, I walked away. I looked over my shoulder once to see her using her mouth to pick up the baby by the scruff of the neck, to take it back to the safety of their den.