New state rule bad news for Hoosier critters

Mike Meservy, owner of Advanced Pest Control in Indianapolis, is upset over a proposed rule that would require him and other “nuisance animal control permit holders” to euthanize all raccoons, opossums and coyotes they capture.

“Basically, I’m probably going to lose my business,” Meservy said earlier this week. “I just can’t kill any baby raccoons. When you look into those sparkling eyes, you just can’t kill them — you would be a monster. If they are going to force me to kill everything I get, I’m not going to do it.”

The change — from catching the animals and then releasing them within the same county — is now up for public comment after receiving preliminary approval in September 2017 from the Indiana Natural Resources Commission.

Hoosiers will have the opportunity to comment on this and more than 20 other proposed changes before the state’s Natural Resource Commission. While some of the rules help animals, including bats, by providing better protection, others, such as the one Merservy opposes, would result in more animal deaths.

Meservy said most of his customers request that he capture and release the animals.

Meservy averages 150-200 animal captures a year. He said he deals with raccoons more than any other animal. Most of the raccoons he captures — he estimates 70 percent — are females.

“If you kill all the females, that destroys all of the next generation,” he said. He estimates that within three or five years, that could drastically reduce the number of raccoons across Indiana.

An Indiana Department of Natural Resources document from 2015-16 states that raccoon populations are at high levels and that the animals are known to transmit diseases including rabies, distemper and raccoon roundworm, which can be fatal if ingested. The document also states that raccoons eat the eggs of birds and turtles, and cause damage and kill poultry on farms. It states that coyotes are “a predator of domestic cats and dogs, as well as poultry and game birds.”