“Kevin, come on down. Something I want to show you ... before it disappears,” said Steve Edwards, Boothbay Register’s graphic artist, from the top of the stairs at the office on Tuesday morning, May 30.

Carefully opening the basement door, Steve said to me, “Look!”

There, huddled between the retaining wall and a wooden pallet, were two young raccoons. One was peeking out between the slats in the pallet. Edwards quickly took some photos.

After both of us resumed work – and perhaps wishing that Mama raccoon would appear to take her young off to a safer place – Edwards called our operations manager Sarah Morley to see what we should do about our “visitors.” 

After Morley arrived at the scene and kiddingly said she wanted to take them home, the eventual solution was done via a few phone calls and physical assistance.

Robin Ford, Boothbay Register’s business services employee, secured a box to put the raccoons in. Bruce Orne, a carpenter working across the road at Ae Ceramics, came by with some dog food he had in his truck, to perhaps help coax the critters into the box – they were not cooperative. He and Edwards quickly grabbed the two raccoons – fearing they would run out onto Union Street and get hit by a car – after they tried to escape being put in the box.

Once secured in the box – thanks to Ford’s help in holding open the flaps – Morley drove the young raccoons to the Boothbay Animal Shelter where she handed them off to Betsy Pratt, a former animal control officer.