MODERN PIED PIPER

BY Jack Star

North Shore

October 1990

As a boy growing up in Chicago's Old Town, Garon L. Fyffe lovingly tended pet dogs, cats, snakes, worms, groundhogs, insects and lizards. Today, just as lovingly, Fyffe makes a good living by trapping suburbia's sometimes unwanted interlopers- raccoons, opossums, squirrels, skunks, and bees- and transporting them miles away to a suitable habitat where they won't have conflicts with the human species.

Fyffe is a cheerfully plump, rumpled man in his 40's who operates ABC Humane Wildlife Rescue and Relocation of Arlington Heights. With a branch in Woodridge, he covers the entire metropolitan area.

A graduate of Northeastern Illinois University, Fyffe enjoyed an eclectic career as a bartender, security guard, roller coaster operator and synagogue sexton before getting close to local wildlife as a naturalist for the Cook County River Trail Nature Center. "It was here I learned that wild animals were regarded by people as invaders," he says. "I felt compelled to act as sort of a mediator."

Fyffe operates a fleet of 13 trucks that carry ladders, all sorts of humane traps, baits such as liver sausages, walnuts and peanut butter, stethoscopes, to listen inside a wall for invaders, long poles with capture snares and bite-proof gloves made of the same material as bulletproof vests. He charges $65 and up for a service call depending on the time involved.

Raccoons are among suburbia's most common pests. "They frequently climb up a drainpipe and gnaw into an attic," Fyffe says admiringly. He once rushed to the scene when a hysterical woman reported that the ceiling over her bed had just collapsed, dumping a mother raccoon and four babies atop her. (Rainwater entering through a hole in the roof-gnawed by the mother raccoon-had weakened the ceiling.) Just as frightened, the raccoons had taken shelter in the woman's bathtub, where the mother raccoon was snarling at all comers and fiercely displaying teeth and claws.

Within minutes Fyffe had mother and babies in two separate cages and drove 25 miles to a field. "If you remove raccoons less than 15 miles there's a chance they'll return," Fyffe says. Fyffe found a hollow tree (a favorite home for raccoons in the wild) and placed the babies inside before releasing the mother, who seemed quite pleased with her new apartment.

Skunks are also among the most unwanted. But Fyffe defends them as useful controllers of field mice, bumblebee hives and lawn grubs. Fyffe says getting rid of skunks is a job for professionals. A Mount Prospect man, not wanting to pay Fyffe's $65 fee, "threw newspapers saturated with lighter fluid into his window well after a skunk fell inside," Fyffe says. "When the fire spread to the siding the man turned on a garden hose, breaking the overheated window and permitting the skunk, who suffered a singed tail, to find safety in the cluttered basement. It cost the householder a lot more than $65 when I had to come over and set a trap. And, to show his contempt, the skunk squirted all over the basement."

In the course of his work Fyffe has been squirted numerous times but regards this as only a minor hazard. "None of our 19 employees has ever been bitten or had to file a Workman's compensation claim," he says. "But I have been stung, hundreds of times, by bees." Luckily, Fyffe has never suffered an allergic reaction, which can be fatal. To play it safe, he carries a syringe loaded with adrenaline in his truck to counter such reactions.

Removing bees from homes is another job for professionals; Fyffe keeps a beekeeper on his staff. "Lots of people who see bees fly into an opening in their siding promptly block it," Fyffe says. "That's a mistake. Instead of remaining within the wall space the bees will then come into your house through an electrical outlet. It's also a mistake to spray insecticide within the walls. You kill the bees, all right, but the honey within the walls starts to drip down and stink, attracting roaches and mice." Fyffe's beekeepers, properly clothed and masked, removes queens, baby bees and honey to a new home in a farmer's beehive.

Fyffe's wife, Jerilyn, (who is the daughter of Lois Weissberg, Chicago's commissioner of cultural affairs), is usually willing to give free telephone advice -(847) 870-7175- to householders with animal problems. Her advice is invariably practical. To a woman who says that a robin is fluttering around the living room she recommends closing all window blinds except one on an open window. "The bird will head for the light," she assures the woman.

Bats are a perennial North Shore problem. Fyffe collected his biggest fee ever from a Lake Forester whose attic housed hundreds of bats for many years. Dung had accumulated a foot high. "I waited until the babies could fly and called in a carpenter to board up all the attic openings except for one," Fyffe says. "Here, we installed a one-way door that permitted the bats to fly out but not return. Then we shoveled up the dung and sterilized the wood. The total bill was several thousand dollars but, believe me, the man who owned the house was pleased to pay it!"