Looking for Ways to Discourage Raccoons from Fishing in Our Backyard Pond

[BSquared18]

Below is a link to a video showing a family of raccoons fishing for small goldfish in our backyard pond (evening of Aug 27, 2023). The warm season started out with two dozen small feeder goldfish that we rescued from a local pet store. Ironically, now they've become feeders for racoons. Near the end of the video, it looks like one raccoon is exiting the pond area with a fish in its mouth. You may understand that it's easy to become attached to those little guys (little fish, not little raccoons).

I've started to research options for making the pond less attractive to the raccoons. Two main categories seem to be products such as animal urine or other anti-animal chemicals, and devices that broadcast ultrasonic sounds and/or pulse lights to scare away animals.

If you know of anything that works well to encourage raccoons to look elsewhere for their evening meals, please describe it in this thread. If I try something out, I'll post the results on this thread.

Thanks,
Bill

 

[JRS]

Unfortunately a common problem for many pond keepers. Here are some suggestions from prior threads:

Raccconnss?? Help!

Hello, super important question. I have had my pond up and running for two summers , never had issues, this summer for the first time woke up on Sunday with 2 Koi missing, then noticed blood and little bit of flesh on a few rocks surronding my pond, I assumed it must of been a raccoon since we...

www.gardenpondforum.com

Spooked and injured fish

All of my fish except one injured one have been hiding behind the waterfall in my 900 gallon pond for three days now. The injured guy has lost some scales on his sides and is lying/swimming on his side. It may have been a raccoon, I don't know. I wonder how long the fish will hide. I...

www.gardenpondforum.com

Raccoon trouble

Last year I hired a company, at great expense, to trap and release the raccoons that were destroying my pond plants and knocking over my filter/fountain. They eventually caught five. Now I have another one that I see on my Ring camera at night. It is wary of the trap I set (no idea what I would...

www.gardenpondforum.com

Any pond critters that racoons WON'T eat?

Hello. I Have a hard liner goldfish pond which is netted due to a heron having a feast many years ago. Last year I built a natural wildlife pond with a flexible liner to house minnows. No problems with birds but racoons discovered it and kept moving my stacked rocks around, put several holes...

www.gardenpondforum.com

 

[j.w]

Well they didn't want to go in for a swim. Weird how that one just reached over and grabbed a fish so easy. Maybe you should turn the lights off as maybe the fish are blinded by it and don't see the raccoons? I'm just guessing. I had to resort to a full wide weave net high up on stakes all around my pond that hangs down and attaches to a short wire fence reinforced w/extra wire to make the spaces between the fence even tighter. I was trying to keep both the heron and the raccoons out and it worked! I tried everything else except an electric fence or a shooting water scarecrow. I hear those can work but not sure if the raccoons would care if they got wet.

The fence and net may not look so great but it's all that worked for me.

Wire fence reinforced:

I have the net attached to the fence w/s clips for I can easily detach it from the short fence in case I need to do any maintenance in the pond.
The rope is weaved through the net for strength and attached to stakes w/these clips:

Like I said I hated to have to ruin the look of the pond but it's the only way I could save the fish. Others have done their nets so they roll back etc. and are hidden and then used only when needed.

 

[GBBUDD]

RACOONS HAVE NO SALIVA AND THEY NEED to find a water source when they eat . they apparently tried to fish a little but they didn't stay at it very long

 

[rubyduby]

unfortunately many people build their ponds with shallow ends and racoons then have easy access. My pond has steep sides and even though we have a ton of racoons they cannot seem to catch my fish....even herons come up empty...I tend to agree with j.w. , your lights might be blinding the fish....I would try turning them off when the pond is unsupervised and see if that helps....

 

[BSquared18]

unfortunately many people build their ponds with shallow ends and racoons then have easy access. My pond has steep sides and even though we have a ton of racoons they cannot seem to catch my fish....even herons come up empty...I tend to agree with j.w. , your lights might be blinding the fish....I would try turning them off when the pond is unsupervised and see if that helps....

Thanks for the thought rubyduby. The lights are activated by motion, as is the camera. If there are no lights at night, the camera image is just darkness. We are thinking of trying one or more UV lights, but that will be if we don't come up with a solution that sends the raccoons on their way.

 

[miamicuse]

I don't know what will work.

I have tried a few things that didn't work. I tried dropping cayenne peppers around the edges to deter, did not work. I bought some stuff online - coyote urine and tiger urine granules, they were supposed to be granules soaked in urine to make the raccoons think that a territory has been marked by a bigger predator, well didn't work either. Some ultrasound gadget that you can set to deter animals supposedly small mammals, that didn't work.

 

[BSquared18]

I don't know what will work.

I have tried a few things that didn't work. I tried dropping cayenne peppers around the edges to deter, did not work. I bought some stuff online - coyote urine and tiger urine granules, they were supposed to be granules soaked in urine to make the raccoons think that a territory has been marked by a bigger predator, well didn't work either. Some ultrasound gadget that you can set to deter animals supposedly small mammals, that didn't work.

Your experiences match the comments many Amazon reviewers have posted for similar products. Because our pond is small, I have a set of framed screens that cover the pond nicely. A barrier like that might be the only method that is likely to work, and even that probably isn't one-hundred percent foolproof. And setting up and taking down the screens soon becomes a pain and makes one yearn for simpler solutions.

 

[Mgessert]

This electric fence netting (raccoonnet) is very easy to put up and take down, so you can train the raccoons to go elsewhere, then put it away until you need it again. Works great!

RaccoonNet® 4/18/12 Kit

Portable electric fence that keeps raccoons out of sweet corn patches and gardens.

www.premier1supplies.com

 

[j.w]

We had this guy visit us after I locked my pond down good and tight so he/she couldn't get in anymore. Guess it is desperately looking for bugs in the middle of the day even! It would come right up to our slider door on our deck and even brought the whole family one night!

 

[j.w]

Gosh I had to clear all my cookies first in order to get that video above to work! Finally figured that out!

 

[BSquared18]

We had this guy visit us after I locked my pond down good and tight so he/she couldn't get in anymore. Guess it is desperately looking for bugs in the middle of the day even! It would come right up to our slider door on our deck and even brought the whole family one night!

Raccoon during the day. Something we don't see where we are. Squirrels, rabbits, etc. but no raccoons.

 

[BSquared18]

This electric fence netting (raccoonnet) is very easy to put up and take down, so you can train the raccoons to go elsewhere, then put it away until you need it again. Works great!

RaccoonNet® 4/18/12 Kit

Portable electric fence that keeps raccoons out of sweet corn patches and gardens.

www.premier1supplies.com

"Fence energizer." I'll have to look that one up on Amazon. And look for videos on YouTube that show the fence in action. Thanks for the tip. It might be a lot easier than hauling the framed screens back and forth.

 

[j.w]

Raccoon during the day. Something we don't see where we are. Squirrels, rabbits, etc. but no raccoons.

Made us wonder if the thing wasn't rabid or something as you sure don't usually see them during the day. We stayed far away from it!

 

[BSquared18]

Made us wonder if the thing wasn't rabid or something as you sure don't usually see them during the day. We stayed far away from it!

Very wise. Hmm. I see some froth on your mouth. Probably nothing to worry about....