Raccoons and Park Rangers

Raccoons and park rangers are two things you would naturally expect to find in a state park while camping. What you would not expect is that the raccoons would get you, the camper, in trouble with the park rangers. Well, they did, over a dozen cute little animals, raccoons got my friend and I in trouble with the park rangers to the point the rangers threatened to make us leave the camp ground.

My friend and I became camping buddies taking our kids camping nearly every other weekend during the summer months. Our ritual was to get camp sites next to each other and would take turns cooking our evening meal first at one site and the next night at the other. After dinner, we would throw some logs on the fire for the night's campfire. The night the raccoons got us in trouble with the park rangers, we were at my friend's camp site.

The kids had gone to bed for the night, hers in her tent and my youngest son in ours. She and I were relaxing around the small campfire when we heard a ruckus coming from the camp site on the opposite side of my campsite. As it was nearing midnight we were a bit unsettled by the commotion and when we started seeing the beams of light from their flashlights searching my camp site we took extra interest.

Grabbing our own flashlights from under our lawn chairs, we too started shining light around my tent. Much to our surprise, we spotted not one but several furry rodents climbing on the picnic table in front of the tent. Not only that but there were more under the table, another seemed to be trying to get into my tent, and two more were investigating the cooler in front of the tent.

We both screamed! Raccoons were invading my campsite and my son was alone in the tent. We ran to the tent yelling grabbing up a sticks and stones as we went. As we did this, the neighbors continued shining their flashlights now following the raccoons as they scurried into the woods between my tent and the lake.

Once we knew my son was safe and no raccoons had managed to get into the tent we looked where the neighbor's flashlights were shining. We counted 14 in all raccoons of all sizes in the trees. They were obviously a couple of families and they seemed intent on not leaving the area. We continued yelling, screaming, throwing things in the direction of the raccoons.

Now don't get me wrong, we didn't want to hurt the raccoons. I love raccoons and think they are the most darling creatures. We just wanted them to go some place else to spend the night. I guess they got the idea because after about a half hour of our 'scaring them off' they left. The neighbors went to bed and my friend and I went back to the campfire shining our flashlights around my campsite from time to time.

We had just settled in when a great light shined on us setting in our lawn chairs. The light was so bright we couldn't see who was behind it but as he neared in a not so pleasant voice he introduced himself - the park ranger! Not just one park ranger but three of them converged on our camp site flashlights in hand and informed us there had been complaints about the noise and we would have to quiet down or would be asked to leave the camp grounds.

We tried to explain about the raccoons and we knew when threatened by animals in nature to make a lot of noise and make ourselves appear bigger by waving our arms and throwing rocks and sticks. It did no good they weren't listening to us - we were in trouble. Those cute furry masked friends the raccoons had gotten us in trouble with the park rangers!

The park rangers left and the raccoons didn't return that night at least but we were convinced the critters were in the trees and wooded area laughing at us because we got in trouble and they didn't. We also had great fun on future camping trips impersonating park rangers threatening to kick people out of the campground for things such as snoring too loud or burping among other things.

This Camping Trip Experience took place at:
Waterloo Recreation Area
Area Headquarters
16345 McClure Rd.
Chelsea, Michigan 48118