The Ranch Club Estates in Buellton has open space as its backyard, but lately that wilderness has become more of a nuisance than something to peacefully coexist with.
This spring, the mobile home park for residents aged 55 and older has seen “unprecedented destruction to residences by raccoons,” according to a letter the Ranch Club Homeowners Association (HOA) sent out to residents in June.
“These ingenious scavengers have multiplied in numbers and have managed to destroy seemingly intact skirting, insulation, ducts, in their quest to nest under houses,” the letter states. “It has been of significant cost, stress, and perseverance on the part of those affected residents as they have tried to cope with it.”
Destruction to one resident’s home is up to $4,000 in damages, while another had a car that was broken into.
Buellton Mayor Holly Sierra said the issue had become so bad that park residents reached out to her to see if the city could potentially pass an ordinance to back up the state law that already bans feeding wild animals. At the June 8 City Council meeting, Sierra brought it up as something that needed to be addressed, saying the raccoon problem’s root cause was most likely neighborhood residents who are leaving food out for the critters.
“It’s starting to become a problem for other residents; it’s starting to attract them,” she said during the meeting. “They’re leaving their doggie doors open, and they find them in the kitchen.”
Speaking to the Sun, Sierra said the resident whose property received the most damage was still dealing with the repercussions of a raccoon that had a litter of babies in the air ducts beneath her home.
“She had to put steel plates under her coach to try and prevent the raccoons from getting into the air ducts. She’s the one that got hit the hardest,” Sierra said. “The people who are feeding these animals are bringing them into the park, and now they’re having babies, and now the park is home.”
While the mayor has lived in Buellton for about 20 years, she said this is the first time she’s heard of wildlife posing a major issue in the town. Sierra said she used to live in the Vandenberg Village area, describing the neighborhood as backing up to beautiful trails and open space. One of her neighbors started throwing scraps over her fence to feed “starving animals,” drawing coyotes into the neighborhood—“into the streets to hunt down cats and dogs,” Sierra said.
It’s very similar to what’s happening in the mobile home park, she said, where multiple neighbors, some of whom don’t have pets, are leaving food bowls out.
Both Sierra and City Manager Marc Bierdzinski said they are hoping that the issue clears itself up with some educational presentations from Santa Barbara County Animal Services and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
“The regulations of … Fish and Wildlife are already in place, and they have mechanisms in place, and they have fines in place,” Bierdzinski said. “We’re trying to move forward in that vein. If we need to do an ordinance in the future, I’m open to that.”
Los Angeles County has an ordinance in place that “prohibits feeding non-domesticated mammalian predators, including but not limited to coyotes, raccoons, foxes, and opossums,” according to a post by state Fish and Wildlife marine biologist Carrie Wilson on californiaoutdoorsqas.com, a blog the department maintains to answer questions from residents.
“People often think they are just feeding cute, furry critters, like squirrels and raccoons,” Wilson wrote. “When animals concentrate around food they are more likely to spread diseases to each other and to domestic pets. When wild animals lose their natural fear of humans they can become very aggressive. Coyotes, in particular, are well known for eating small pets because they do not differentiate between the food you leave for them and other prey items, like dogs and cats.”
Raccoons can also be hosts to Baylisascaris procyonis, a roundworm that can be harmful to people, according to a Centers for Disease Control factsheet. Roundworm eggs are passed in the feces of raccoons and humans can become infected by ingesting those eggs. The factsheet states that anyone exposed to environments that raccoons frequent is potentially at risk.
Santa Barbara County Animal Services Director Jan Glick said that the department had 689 officer responses for wildlife-related cases countywide in the 2016-17 fiscal year, which ended on June 30. She also said that the department had not had any recent complaints at the Ranch Club Estates regarding raccoons or other wildlife.
Glick said Animal Services does respond to calls involving injured and orphaned wildlife, deceased wildlife, or if someone is having wildlife concerns. The way to alleviate the concerns is to eliminate food sources, she said, and that’s something the county is talking to the Ranch Club HOA about. This includes trash, pet food, and fruit trees, which were specified as food sources in the letter sent out to residents by the HOA.
“It has come to our attention that there are residents who are choosing to put food out for them in the interest of their cuteness,” the HOA letter stated. “It is simply not acceptable for one resident to put food out for raccoons or other animals (this includes bread for birds!) and their neighbor to pay great cost for that choice.”
Reach Executive Editor Camillia Lanham at clanham@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jul 6-13, 2017.