Close encounters of the furry kind

Photo courtesy of Noah Staninger
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A satirical take on the campus raccoons

Noah Staninger / Contributor / The USD Vista

You’re walking to Camino after a long day of changemaking. You’re only a few feet from the  entrance when you begin to feel an overwhelming sense of fear. Your hairs stand on end and your knees feel weak as you approach the door. With each step you take, the anxiety grows and everything begins to seem surreal. You can’t explain it but you suddenly feel as if you’re not alone. You start running, hands sweating as you reach for the door, when suddenly something jumps out of the trash! Could it be a ghost? A clown? Danny Devito?! Or something more sinister still? You freeze, seconds turn to hours as it stares into your soul. The greatest threat to USD students since having to explain what a Torero is. A raccoon!

Many students have had perilous encounters with these dumpster-diving deviants but how much do we really know about them? Where do they come from? What do they want? How can they afford to go here? Do they have access to scholarships or FAFSA? The mysteries of the unknown can turn our picturesque campus into a nightmarish hell. I was able to get ahold of Captain Quinton Kawahara from public safety, and I asked him if he could give us some information in order to ease our anxiety.

Though they’ve been around as long as anyone can remember, the sheer size of their population is unknown.  Kawahara spoke about what it means to live amongst these creatures.

“There are no active measures other than suggesting the community does not feed or leave out food for the raccoons as that will continue to attract them to campus,” Kawahara said. “The San Diego Humane Society Law Enforcement will not respond for general raccoon calls on campus, unless the raccoon has bitten someone or acting aggressive toward people.”

Normally appearing around Camino and Founders but sometimes venturing as far as the SLP, these racoons have infiltrated our campus. I personally encountered one, teeth bared, claws at the ready, outside of Copley Library. Last May one decided to crash a Wednesday night mass by climbing on the altar. Back in 2014 (this actually happened, you can Google it) a turf war broke out between the raccoons and the feral cats. Have you seen any cats lately? Didn’t think so. And who is next on their hit list? Students, faculty, or even the beloved dogs that people bring could all be at risk from these freeloading feral fiends. Despite the risks, some students have tried contacting them. I spoke to senior Juan Rodriguez who was willing to tell me about his own encounters with the raccoons.

“I think it was two years ago, I was living in Camino and we had animal crackers, and there were raccoons outside by the trash cans,” Juan Rodriguez said. “So one night we decided to feed him some of the animal crackers, and he loved them so we made a trail leading into Camino. So he started running around the halls at around 8:30 or 9 p.m. when there were still some classes going on. We were laughing a lot.”

So are these scavenging scoundrels really as menacing  as we make them out to be? Despite the threats they pose and the terrors they wrought, this is still the University of San Diego, and we must take active steps to accommodate the raccoons on our campus and provide them with the services that come standard with our university experience. I managed to speak to the raccoons, and I asked how they felt about their lack of representation on campus. They had no words.