Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash
When we left for vacation, I was worried about my four-year-old Ayers Pear tree. It had so many ripening fruits on it, I feared its young branches would break off. This was its first bumper crop after challenging years of late freezes, cicada damage, and various pests that flourished due to my reluctance to use pesticides. The tree is healthy enough now to fend off most of these challenges, and the fruit was nearly perfect.
Upon our return, I was stopped dead in my tracks as I walked through the orchard. All but one of the pears was missing. No trace of fruit on the ground. No half-eaten fruit left on the tree. It was completely stripped, save for one easily accessible pear. A four-foot-tall, three-foot-diameter fence surrounds the tree to protect it from deer damage. The highest fruit would have been beyond the reach of the tallest buck. Birds would have left evidence behind.
Linda went online to solve the puzzle, and numerous orchardist stories led to the conclusion that raccoons were the likely culprits. Some described raids on large trees with bumper crops stripped of every pear overnight, right before picking day.
Raccoons have stolen from us in the past. As we patiently watched our beloved "Gotta Have It” sweet corn ripen until the silks turned brown, we weren’t the only ones. Raccoons didn’t just eat the corn; they broke off the stalks and cast their half-shucked ears onto the ground as if possessed. I tried fencing the corn, but they easily outsmarted that barrier. Extra raccoon corn was planted this year as a gesture of goodwill.
Our tiny orchard is a pear's throw away from over a thousand acres of contiguous forest in the Griffy Creek valley. I could trap a few raccoons if I wanted, but I would more likely trap the curious neighborhood cats instead. I suspect there are dozens of raccoon families in those woods, and any attempt to remove them would prove futile. Regardless of the chances of success, I don't want to eliminate wildlife from our farm because protecting and restoring wildlife is part of the reason we live here.
When we first moved to the farm in 2015, a neighbor and his son came to the door. With his father’s prompt, the pre-teen son, his leg in a heavy plaster cast, asked if he could set traps for raccoons at our intermittent frog pond. I told him that we like raccoons and would prefer to keep them alive. Eyebrows raised. Eyes rolled. Heads shook in disbelief. They never returned. To them, raccoons were just fur and meat, pests with no intrinsic value. They thought they were being good neighbors.
Raccoons have most likely been residents of the farm since the last ice age, approximately 10,000 years ago, even before Native Americans walked along Griffy Creek. Their dexterous front paws and cunning brains have enabled them to adapt and survive, even as their habitat continues to shrink due to human development.
As the human population has tripled in my lifetime, the global population of wild mammals has declined in a similarly dramatic manner. Wild mammals comprise only about 4% of the global mammalian population, with humans and our livestock dominating. According to a 2023 study, the estimated global biomass of humans is 390 million metric tons, or about six times the weight of wild mammals. The weight of our domesticated cattle is 420 million metric tons. Dogs are now the fifth-ranked mammal by mass, weighing in at 21 million metric tons, which is roughly equivalent to the combined mass of all wild land mammals.
Despite all that displacement, the raccoons left me with a perfect Ayers Pear to enjoy. After calm consideration, I remain grateful for their presence, and I will consider it a challenge to find a way for us all to enjoy future harvests from their land.
“In wildness is the preservation of the world.”
— Henry David Thoreau