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right. They were brought here deliberately. As were muskrats. I think the nutria are only in maritime Oregon and washington. They have a tendency to burrow into banks and dikes and often destroy them. They can be major agricultural pests if near vegetable crops. They are vegetarian, but can reach 30 lbs, are fierce, and can take on and whip most dogs, even ones much bigger. Supposedly tasty. A friend of mine near the Willamette river traps them in and near his vegetable fields in live traps, dispatches them with a .22, and eats them. He confirms they are tasty.

Like me, he doesnt want to harm cats. Pets or feral. They are valuable to vegetable growers as they clobber mice, rats, voles, and gophers.
One winter I had my Chesapeake out for a run in the Smith-Bybee Lakes area.
There had been a hard freeze and many of the Nutria could not get back into their dens due to the ice.
There also had been a snowfall. The Nutria were easy to spot on the snow.

As soon as Kruzer saw them he was off like a rocket and started killing them one after another.
Team Dog won that day.
 
Those 'Coon Cuffs look really effective.
Lots of Youtube videos to watch.
They work incredibly well. I bought mine from Amazon but it looks like they don't sell them anymore. Just make sure the chain is secured to something solid so they don't run away with the trap. I used small piece of rebar driven intro the ground for that.

They have a good sense of smell. This one tried to steal food delivery and was surprised when I caught him in the act.

 
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I have had a couple raccoon problems on my property over the years, they can be tough on smaller pets. I also have had many problems with them in the San Juan Islands while tied up to state park docks at night. They would get on your boat and rummage around for food and in one case ripped a cushion trying to open a hatch to get at fish pellets I use for shrimp bait. The little buggers sure could ruin a good nights sleep. They are annoying and sometimes dangerous to small pets. That being said I would rather deal with them than the problem I had last muzzle load deer season at hunting camp. The first couple nights we woke up to critters rummaging around the wall tent. When we would yell or make noise getting up to investigate they would scuttle off into the weeds and we could not id the perps. Well this continued until one night at 2 AM my buddy wakes me saying he thinks something is in the tent with us. I hear it and agree. I finally find my olight and illuminate the critter, Holy Shiite we have a polecat in the tent with us. My buddy shrieks what do we do? as he is standing on his bunk dancing around. I was still laying in my bunk and just pulled the sleeping bag over my head and hoped for the best. My buddy finally did the same and Mr. Skunk finally left on his own accord without spraying thank God! We secured the sod cloth down with rocks and small lengths of pecker poles the next morning. We also drove into town and found moth balls and scattered them all around camp. We had read this wards them off. They stayed at bay for one night but were back the next and continued to be a problem the rest of the trip despite a very clean camp and moth balls. We did manage to keep them out of the tent the rest of the trip though. If anybody has a good way to repel skunks I am all ears. If that skunk had let go inside my tent I would have probably had to dowse it in diesel and burn it down and start over on my camp set up.
 
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This is what a 40LB racoon will do to 1656251337297.png a 26LB dog, dog walked away the winner.
 
I'm not going to offend readers with gory details

just shot the first one - good head shot - enough damage to kill a human

and it ran away - not fast or steady, but a head shot didn't drop it in it's tracks

will try a heart lung shot behind the front legs next time
Most small predators such as raccoons, opossums, or skunks are easily killed by a .22 chest shot...but not immediately. Brain shots will kill immediately, but are hard to get. The brain is small and the head is usually moving. And its often night. The chest-shot animal usually runs off to die elsewhere, leaving us unhappy because we wanted a kill as close to instant as possible. Or the animal collapses but writhes in agony for most of a full minute or more while dying--a long time if you yourself are crying inside while you watch. If you are a more callous sort you might not care. But I'm not and I do. And I'm not alone. Many people using 9mm have the same experience with small predators, and end up switching to .45acp. The 9mm bullets, even if fancy SD jhps, tend to just zip through such a small light target without opening up. The .45acp normally achieves the instant or almost instant kill desired. So does a .357 mag. I'm guessing that a .38sp would have the same problems as 9mm in round nose or jhp types, but would probably also do the trick with full wadcutters and maybe with semi wadcutters or round nose flat point designs.
 
It isn't a good idea to feed raccoons. They lose their fear of humans and sooner or later become a problem. Big coons tend to get aggressive and go after dogs or challenge people who try to shoo them. Also not a good idea to leave pet food on the porch. Feed the pets indoors.
 
They are in the Smith-Bybee Lake area of North Portland.
The sloughs in there are perfect habitat for them.
Have seen them most anywhere there is slack water such as Crystal springs in Pdx and ridgefield wa. If we had more bald eagles that would help keep them in check. Back when they were nesting at crystal springs they took out 100% of the invasive squirrel population and I'm sure put a big dent into the nutria. One prick shot 2 bald Eagles in Pdx with a BB gun last year I think it was. That pisses me off. We don't have that many to begin with and they are just starting to become established. Heard one over the house 2 days ago but never laid eyes on it.
 
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Most small predators such as raccoons, opossums, or skunks are easily killed by a .22 chest shot...but not immediately. Brain shots will kill immediately, but are hard to get. The brain is small and the head is usually moving. And its often night. The chest-shot animal usually runs off to die elsewhere, leaving us unhappy because we wanted a kill as close to instant as possible. Or the animal collapses but writhes in agony for most of a full minute or more while dying--a long time if you yourself are crying inside while you watch. If you are a more callous sort you might not care. But I'm not and I do. And I'm not alone. Many people using 9mm have the same experience with small predators, and end up switching to .45acp. The 9mm bullets, even if fancy SD jhps, tend to just zip through such a small light target without opening up. The .45acp normally achieves the instant or almost instant kill desired. So does a .357 mag. I'm guessing that a .38sp would have the same problems as 9mm in round nose or jhp types, but would probably also do the trick with full wadcutters and maybe with semi wadcutters or round nose flat point designs.
I'm callous as hell.

I've been known to do the Snoopy Dance when killin' varmints. I shoot to kill, of course, but some die harder than others. I've lost too many chickens.

 
Story #1
Had something eating out cat's dry food which was ontop of the BBQ grill right outside the kitchen window. Doing the dishes after dinner (dark out) I saw something move. Ran out the back door yelling YYAAAAHHHH!! Door was 5 ft from the food bowl. I figured I would scare it. This 'demon' stood up on its back legs and hissed right back at me!! I'm pretty sure I levitated back inside without touching the ground! Probably weighed a good 30-40 lbs. Grabbed the golf club iron behind the door and back I went (couldn't embarrass myself in front of the wife and kid), heard it scrambling and threw the club horizontally toward the sound. Hit it as it went up the fence but wasn't a kill shot.

Called the county and they sent out a trapper and trap, told me to call when I had one in there. It was a step trap that closed the door behind the critter. Put in cat food (obviously a fan favorite) and water in small plastic tubs. Ate the food and got out of the trap twice! Dammit! Put a scrap dog towel over the step at that point. Got up one morning and just got a feeling... Went out and there was a coon in the trap for sure. Imagine an XXL trap with one pi**ed off coon in there. Chewed up both the bowls and there was no piece of the towel left over 2 sq in!! And talk about a bad attitude?!!

Trapper picked up the trap and demon to let go way out in a forest. Coons are very intelligent. They know what day you put your garbage out and are aware of that schedule in various neighborhoods around their habitat.
 
Story #2
Had a friend whose neighbor had a deck with a nice view of a creek that ran through their back yard. They would watch as raccoons would come down 'to wash their hands', but the coons would never approach them.
A couple of litters later the family would leave food out for them to get them to approach.
A couple of litters later they got some to take food from their hand.
A couple of litters later the young kits had zero fear of humans.
A couple of litters later they came home to find about 20 raccoons inside their house bc someone had left the sliding door unlocked. And since they had no fear they couldn't chase them out! Destroyed the inside of the house!

My friend had warned them but they didn't listen.
 
No nutria in my neighborhood but we have some mountain beaver. Which isn't a beaver, it's a big rodent. They dig holes around where you may not want them. I've killed them before with a shovel, takes more than one whack to do the job.

Story #1
Had something eating out cat's dry food which was ontop of the BBQ grill right outside the kitchen window. Doing the dishes after dinner (dark out) I saw something move. Ran out the back door yelling YYAAAAHHHH!! Door was 5 ft from the food bowl. I figured I would scare it. This 'demon' stood up on its back legs and hissed right back at me!! I'm pretty sure I levitated back inside without touching the ground! Probably weighed a good 30-40 lbs. Grabbed the golf club iron behind the door and back I went (couldn't embarrass myself in front of the wife and kid), heard it scrambling and threw the club horizontally toward the sound. Hit it as it went up the fence but wasn't a kill shot.

Called the county and they sent out a trapper and trap, told me to call when I had one in there. It was a step trap that closed the door behind the critter. Put in cat food (obviously a fan favorite) and water in small plastic tubs. Ate the food and got out of the trap twice! Dammit! Put a scrap dog towel over the step at that point. Got up one morning and just got a feeling... Went out and there was a coon in the trap for sure. Imagine an XXL trap with one pi**ed off coon in there. Chewed up both the bowls and there was no piece of the towel left over 2 sq in!! And talk about a bad attitude?!!

Trapper picked up the trap and demon to let go way out in a forest. Coons are very intelligent. They know what day you put your garbage out and are aware of that schedule in various neighborhoods around their habitat.
Where was this at?
 

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