HUMANITY TOUCHES THE ANIMAL WORLD

Don Hayner

How many raccoon stories have you heard lately?

How many times have you heard neighbors complaining about awakening at night only to find one of these masked creatures illuminated by the light of their refrigerator door, asking where the catsup is?

 Face it, wildlife in the suburbs is a problem, and most of us don't think like Marlin Perkins. People get scared, angry, and sometimes violent. I know of one man who was so frustrated by one raccoon that he shot it in his back yard and then ate it.

 There are, of course, more reasonable solutions, like the Garon Fyffe solution.

 Garon Fyffe, 39, is a purist. He is also a conservationist, a naturalist, and an animal humanitarian. He's a guy who brings peace of mind to suburbanites by removing beehives the size of basketball hoops from their living room ceilings and by rescuing raccoon families from their Weber grills.

 He owns the ABC Humane Wildlife Rescue and Relocation service in Arlington Heights. It's a family thing. His wife, Jerilyn, and daughter Becky, 5, are both part of the operation.

 As a matter of fact, his daughter, who just started school last week, even has her own insect collection. And occasionally she can be heard saying things like, "Dad, I just saw a bee, it was a Bombus Fraternus."

 "Actually, it was a Bombus Pennsylvanicus," Garon says, "but she's learning."

 Although Garon rids unwanted wildlife from condo walls in Rolling Meadows, he isn't what you would call an exterminator. Although sometimes he must destroy beehives or hornet nests, he is more the Mohandas Gandhi of the suburban animal world.

 "I identify with the problems of animals," he says. "I want to solve the people's problems and the animals' problems at the same time. They're not there to attack you, they're just trying to make a living and raise their babies."

 Roland Eisenbeis, the conservation director for the Cook County Forest Preserve District and who, incidentally, speaks highly of Garon says there's more wildlife in the suburban communities than in the rural areas because we're such a wasteful people.

 Eisenbeis says there is a wealth of wildlife in suburbia, including opossums, skunks, minks, weasels, raccoons, and beavers.

 Although Garon won't remove a deer from your family room, he says he "does do beavers" he'll try to safely relocate about any other type of critter there is.

 He cringes at stories of people trying to get rid of raccoons in the fireplace by lighting a fire or tossing a flare. He talks of recovering baby raccoons after these methods have been used only to find most of them dead, or blinded by the flames.

 He understands the human side of wild life invasion too.

 "I got this call from this older woman who said she thought raccoons were in her house. I asked her if there were any signs, like things being knocked off shelves, or droppings on the carpet. She said no, but I went out anyway."

 "The woman showed me a table where she said there were animal scratchings. Then she pointed to the swirl of the wood grain and asked me if I could see the head of a raccoon. These things (animals in the house)," he said, "can wear on a person's mind."

 In the woman's chimney he found a dead and decaying 25-pound raccoon carcass. He removed it, then later called the woman's son and told him that he thought the son should spend more time with the mother.

 The son agreed.

 It's as though Garon sees things in a cosmic sense. Nothing is isolated. A raccoon scurrying in the attic in Arlington Heights isn't just a person's problem, but also an animal's problem.

 All kinds of wildlife make their way into the human sphere of suburbia. Garon says there are plenty of skunks in Glenview, Niles, and Villa Park, and he has safely relocated everything from rattlesnakes in Wheeling to raccoons in Mundelein.

 He uses cage traps and gloved hands to recover and relocate the wayward creatures. Sitting in his pickup truck is like sitting in a safari jeep amid his bee bonnets, khaki-colored shoulder packs, thick gloves, and aluminum poles with ropes on the end.

 There is a soft compassion about the man. When he talks of removing a baby food jar caught on the head of a suffocating skunk it is as though he were talking about helping an injured child.

 Everything to him is connected, alive, and part of a world harmony. As we walked through an open prairie he identified plants in Latin. He picked up an old beer bottle and shook his head. "Punkus Litterus," he says. The collision of man and beast disturbs his sense of balance.

 "I've seen geese with six-pack holders around their necks," he said, "and I've seen a duck tangled in fishing line, its tongue ripped out by the root, its body filled with flies and maggots. It had been stuck in a bush for weeks. Can you imagine a death like that, one of the cruelest things I ever saw. The duck was killed by litter."

 Somehow it's hard to imagine a guy like Garon Fyffe, running a suburban business with a feel for the cosmos, a feel for the harmony of nature. But then again, after talking with him, it's hard to picture someone living the other way.

 As I was leaving I went to shake hands with Garon. I could only grasp his fingers. You see, running through the palm of his hand was a ladybug. He had brought it home for his daughter.

 She too, will know of these things.