How to keep raccoons away

[Doug Kanter]

message

Yikes. Things have gotten out of hand in the big cities.

[Doug Kanter]

I'm admittedly not fully awake yet, but I can't seen to find "coon dog hunter" in the yellow pages. Maybe under hobbies.....no. Furs?

[Doug Kanter]

That's interesting. Our town justice used to be my son's baseball coach, so we had lots of time to shoot the breeze. Once, I was having serious problems with a couple of dogs destroying vegetable plants (digging within the garden). The judge told me that as long as I did not violate firearms laws, it was legal to "reeducate" (i.e.: kill) such dogs. A couple of people who are not in a position to know these things argued with me about this, and asked me to confirm it. I was unable to find this in our town's statutes. Perhaps it's a NY state statute. I believe what the judge told me, but still....it's interesting to know where these things are written, for both practical AND historical reasons.

[Ignoramus27199]

yep, I was thinking about setting up a sniper nest in my master bedroom bathroom, but my hopes were dashed. I have a "security light"that comes on when raccoons visit, so that shooting at them at night would be quite easy. But, I do not want to have gun violations on my record.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- @ @ @ Please forgive my typos as my right hand is injured. @ @ @ char*p="char*p=%c%s%c;main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}";main(){printf(p,34,p,34);} "It's never too late to have a happy childhood."

[Ignoramus27199]

I have a new thought. They used to make fur coats out of raccoons, and hats. We could make a Russian style winter fur hat for my son, for example.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- @ @ @ Please forgive my typos as my right hand is injured. @ @ @ char*p="char*p=%c%s%c;main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}";main(){printf(p,34,p,34);} "It's never too late to have a happy childhood."

[Ignoramus27199]

You see, my spouse would never agree to it no matter what physics based explanations I offer.

[Doug Kanter]

Although I know the electric fence would not be a problem, your wife's opinion is understandable. The mother bear instinct is cool. I only wish human mothers would behave like bear mothers right down to the gory details. That would take care of SO many "people who should be eliminated", keeping George Carlin's criteria in mind as I say that. Based on these criteria, I can recall at least 3 idiots who would've had their faces & throats removed by my wife, when she felt our son was endangered. Sigh....sadly, she's a Unitarian. Too peaceful.

[Doug Kanter]

I know just one person who is so accurate with a slingshot that I wonder sometimes if what I'm watching was digitally altered. Years of practice, I guess.

[Dave Hinz]

Static electricity _is_ DC. The power in lightning will be higher than you get from rubbing your feet on the rug, because the current is higher, but the voltage may very well be the same. It's all about joules (power over time).

[Ignoramus27199]

Hm, I would like to make my own slingshot. Where could Ibuy good rubber for it?

[Doug Kanter]

Oh for cryin' out loud....the top of the line model at that web site is thirty bucks and it has fiber optic sites. Live a little. Spend the money. But, the site also sells just the rubber bands, if you insist on being a shnorer.

[Adam Russell]

[Dave Hinz]

Disagree all you want, but he's right. It's a DC voltage that decreases as it's discharged through a resistance (you), just like any other DC voltage.

...which is also DC, just like a static charge or lightning, but somewhat between the two.

[Not Me]

"Adam Russell" | >

| > Your static charge is DC. | | Disagree. DC means unchanging voltage. Static charge changes as soon as it | is 'used'. Otherwise I agree with what you say. | | > The fences probably use a capactive discharge circuit. | | This makes sense. Good jolt but relatively safe.

As a retired EE : DC means only direct current (as compares to alternating current) it does not mean unchanging. (an over simplified example: If you car has a volt meter watch it when the motor is off and when the motor is running.)

[default]

In fact, I can remember (vividly, no less) one dusk when we were playing tag across the pasture, and I practically garrotted myself on a wire gate that I thought was open. Caught the wire (between barbs, thankfully) right under the chin, and both feet went out in front of me.. *wham* "I don't want to play, anymore."

--Goedjn

[default]

[Dave Hinz]

Heh. I did pretty much the same thing years ago when I was a brand-new, shiny EMT. Responded to a car accident; the car had run off the road, through a barbed wire fence, and overturned, scattering it's un-belted occupants. Things were going really well in my getting to them, until I encountered the part of the barbed wire fence which was still intact. Nice scars, one on my upper arm, another on my chest. I didn't mention it to anyone at the scene, or I would have got that year's award at our annual party, for sure.

Fences, plus dark, plus more speed than visibility, are a bad combination.

Dave Hinz

[bill]

In article , [e-mail] says... <

[Jim Black]

Somehow I doubt it's the brevity that makes static electricity harmless. I've played around with battery-powered circuits that work by delivering pulses of electricity to the subject when the current through a circuit containing an inductor is interrupted (for example, the gag lighters that shock people work this way). Whatever current is flowing through the inductor gets sent through the subject for a short period of time. It's relatively safe because the peak amperage is controlled. If you hook up a resistor in series with the subject, the maximum current doesn't change, but the pulses get shorter. When you do this, the pain falls off, but the response from your muscles doesn't change as much. Eventually, especially if the contact area between the electrodes and the skin is large, you can produce involuntary muscle contractions with little or no pain.

Given that the heart is a muscle, I would think that a few seconds of current would be better than a few milliseconds if the goal was to produce pain without rendering any permanent harm. I could be wrong, but if I had to guess, I'd say the reason static electricity isn't harmful is because most of the voltage is across the air gap, not across your body. Also, the charge is entirely on your skin, and most is probably very close to the spot where you're about to touch something, so practically no current is going through your heart.

Surely it couldn't be very difficult to have a device of some sort in the circuit to control the maximum current. At the very least, couldn't he just put an appropriate fuse in the circuit, if there wasn't one already?

There's almost one order of magnitude between the current needed to cause pain and the current that's large enough to be dangerous. The fact that the area of contact with the wire is small, and a three-year old is larger than a racoon, ought to make the range of safety even broader.

[Advanced Priority]

Who said static electricity is harmless? Lightning is static electricity, but I don't see many people standing outside in a thunderstorm.