For the second time in two weeks, New Canaan police put down what appeared to be a sick raccoon spotted on a resident’s property.
At about 4:13 p.m. on Sunday, police responded to a Bittersweet Lane home where residents reported a raccoon that appeared to have difficulty standing up. The animal fell into a pond and swam across toward their house, said Animal Control Officer Maryann Kleinschmitt. Police arrived, located the raccoon and put it down, she said.
Unless a raccoon or other animal suspected of being sick has direct contact with people or domestic pets, police do not test the dispatched animal’s corpse for diseases such as rabies. (A state lab tests for rabies by looking for lesions on the brain.)
Separately, police this week received a report of a coyote sighting—on Monday, at Stoneleigh Road, Kleinschmitt said. Stoneleigh runs back of Hoyt Farms, toward Clapboard Hill and Carter Street, on the eastern side of town (residents there soon will be able to report coyote sightings via cellphone). It’s the sixth sighting this month and 26th so far in 2014. Here’s our updated coyote sighting map: