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t h e u n w a n t e d t r u t h
stories by Ryan Ori and multimedia by David Zentz
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t h e u n w a n t e d t r u t h
stories by Ryan Ori and multimedia by David Zentz
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Raccoon hitches a ride
Sunday, May 4, 2008
The scenario seemed absurd enough on its own.
Somewhere inside a black van in the parking lot of the Peoria Animal Welfare Shelter, an agitated raccoon lurked. The man charged with capturing the raccoon, PAWS shelter services coordinator Bill Motteler, was about to receive the strange-but-true punch line when the van's owner introduced himself: Brian Coon.
A tranquilized raccoon is held by shelter services coordinator Bill Motteler after he helped Peoria-based painter Brian Coon remove the animal from the back of his paint van. Legally, since the animal cannot be released within close proximity to where it was discovered, it must be put to sleep. In addition to dogs and cats, the PAWS shelter must accept any animal that comes its way, including skunks, deer, rats, hamsters and birds, to name a few.
Coon believes the coon entered his unattended van during a break from cleaning it in his garage. The next day, he and two other painters drove all the way to Quincy before realizing they had a fourth passenger.
After removing tools and paint buckets, Motteler located the intruder. Using a long stick with a syringe at the end, Motteler jabbed the raccoon to inject it with a tranquilizer. After waiting five minutes, he picked up the limp body and prepared to administer a lethal injection.
Motteler and Coon noticed yellow paint on the raccoon's stomach and near one eye.
"We were painting a Buffalo Wild Wings," Coon explained. Because it serves as a regional animal control shelter, PAWS is required to take in any animal that arrives on site. There also are six animal control officers in the field, serving 619 square miles in Peoria County.
In addition to catching strays and abandoned animals, the officers are called in cases of sick or injured wildlife, animal cruelty cases, wildlife in homes and illegal animals being kept as pets. Sometimes, the mentally ill will accumulate 50 or more pets in a home.
Although the shelter mostly sees cats and dogs, it also takes in birds, fish, snakes, pot-bellied pigs, iguanas, alligators, emus and a host of other critters.
Most mornings, some type of pet has been left in the chain-link fences outside.
The day of Coon's visit, the only other wildlife Motteler saw was a deer that had to be put down by an animal control officer. The deer had two broken legs after being hit by a car on Mossville Road.
But at PAWS, Motteler expects the unexpected.
"If a guy named 'Gorilla' shows up in a van, send somebody else out there," Motteler joked.
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