A blind raccoon (and his kitten bodyguards)

Reader Bill B. sent a link to a video about a blind raccoon (I’d call him “Milton”) who, mirabile dictu, has survived in the wild (albeit with human help) for five years.

This is a Blind Raccoon. He is at least 5 years old and has been coming to our house for about 5 years. There is something wrong with his tapetum lucidum. His eyes shine bright green during the day. He is at least partially blind. He walks into things. He is afraid of the wind, high grass, birds, and snow.

He is out and about during the day. He comes to our house for food early in the morning usually around 6-9AM. He often returns for seconds and sometimes comes back for thirds. His bottom lip is missing so we feed him soft pasta noodles soaked in cream of chicken soup. We often cut up small pieces of hot dogs, ham, pork, etc. He refuses to eat canned cat/dog food.

Recently (late October 2014) 2 black kittens have been hanging around our yard. And they became close with the Blind Raccoon. They would magically appear when he would come for food. So they figured out that Blind Raccoon = FOOD. So they would appear when the Blind Raccoon (and sometimes other raccoons) would show up.

And then THIS happened today….

Well, I’m not sure what “THIS” is, unless it’s the kittens following the raccoon about, but what lovely people to feed him such fancy food! Sadly, the raccoon died in 2015, but he lived at least twice as long as wild raccoons, or so the staff says in the comments.