Raccoon real victim in lovers' triangle
November 19, 2007
(reprinted from The Ottawa Sun)
AEDAN HELMER
It was a rude awakening.
As he was sipping his morning coffee yesterday, a Brighton man glanced out his kitchen window at the driveway he shares with a neighbour.
He rubbed his bleary eyes and did a double take.
"I ... thought, God, that looks like a raccoon with a spear in it, and a sign on it," he told the Sun. "So I tiptoed out there and, sure enough, that's exactly what it is."
The sign read: "Stop trying to f--- my wife, a--hole."
The man believes the note was intended for his neighbour.
"Apparently he knows what it's about," the man said, adding he'd spoken with investigators in the afternoon.
Attempts to reach the neighbour yesterday were unsuccessful.
Northumberland OPP are treating the case as a legitimate threat. They haven't released any details about a suspect, but neighbours believe the warning might stem from a tryst gone awry.
As for the raccoon: "It's still here," the man lamented late yesterday. "I'm gonna end up moving the damn thing."
He said the discovery was "certainly shocking."
"I don't think anyone went out and got a raccoon and speared it. I would imagine they found it on the road. It's all mutilated."
"This is a great neighbourhood, but we've got a stick in the mud here," he said. "I guess now it's a stick in the raccoon."
Letter to the Editor - November 22, 2007
Re: "Raccoon real victim in lovers' triangle" (Nov. 19).
While the dead raccoon might be the victim of a lovers' quarrel, if it was purposely killed, this kind of animal cruelty can be a sign of mental illness. Studies have shown that such behaviour can often escalate to physical assaults against people. It should not be taken lightly as a possible form of animal exploitation and cruelty.
Our mandate is to protect urban wildlife from undue harm and a society is often judged by how it treats its most helpless and vulnerable, including innocent animals.
Bill Dowd,
President, Humane Wildlife Control Inc.
(Something is definitely wrong in this story)