Unfortunately, the history of the raccoon can be experienced nearly on a daily basis. Mostly it's birds, sometimes cats, rarely a raccoon, but always helpless animals. An excited voice on the phone, a club member calls us: He had found a raccoon lying helplessly on the street. It could barely move its head so it couldn't flee when he approached. He called because one can't just let this poor animal lie and suffer.

Once we kew the exact location of the find, we called the closest vet we knew. Dr. Herwig Islitzer immediately went there and took the injured animal to his practice. Unfortunately, the outcome of the investigation wasn't encouraging. The X-rays showed a fracture of the spine. The only help for the raccoon was to put it to sleep to spare it further pain. One can only call this a sad story that unfortunately happens nearly every day but wouldn't it be even far more sad to just leave the poor animal alone with its pain and suffering?