Less than a week before a woman and her dogs were attacked by a raccoon in Coal Harbour, another woman and her Scottish Terrier were chased down in a West End alley.

Lisa Wilcox exited her apartment’s underground parking garage for a typical early morning walk on Aug. 9 when a raccoon charged at her from more than half a block away.

Wilcox said she grabbed the raccoon before it could swipe at her dog, hoping to keep the animal far away enough from her body to avoid injury.

“It was the lesser of two evils, because it was pretty much going to kill my dog,” she said.

Wilcox said she intended to throw the raccoon into a nearby yard, but before she reached the fence it sunk its teeth through one of her knuckles and into the thumb of her right-hand. The 46-year-old quickly hurled the raccoon into the bed of a pickup truck.

However, in a move Wilcox said was reminiscent of a horror movie, the raccoon leaped out of the vehicle and chased her and her dog down the alley.

The raccoon was eventually scared off by at least five people — one wielding a golf umbrella — who responded to Wilcox’s screams.

Wilcox said she has visited the hospital five times to deal with her injuries and has only recently regained movement in her hand.

The attack has motivated her to find a way to deal with Vancouver’s raccoons — and the people who feed them — but despite contacting the city, provincial conservation officers, the B.C. SPCA and her building’s strata council, she said she’s constantly lambasted by a “pro-raccoon” culture that refuses to recognize the problem.

“If it was a dog attacking people, or any other animal other than a cute raccoon, people would take it very seriously,” she said, adding that many people have told her she’s at fault for the attack.

Wilcox said the raccoon that bit her is part of a group that lives under the porch of a nearby house, and they are increasingly unperturbed by humans. The raccoons, she explained, are frequently fed eggs, fruit, bread, cat food and cereal by the house’s occupant and other residents living in the area.

Two other people living in Wilcox’s building have been attacked, she said, and one was chased down the alley by a raccoon this past week.

“They’re becoming more and more aggressive each year,” Wilcox said, adding she’s lived in the building since 1984.

“I’ve never seen it this bad.”

However, the City of Vancouver has no plans to pass a no-feeding bylaw because wildlife is governed provincially, said a city employee who refused to be named.

According to the provincial Wildlife Act, feeding “dangerous wildlife” either by providing food directly, attempting to attract the animals using food or unintentionally leaving food out can result in fines.

But Ministry of Environment conservation officer Chris Doyle said raccoons do not fall into the “dangerous” category — reserved for animals like cougars and bears — therefore tickets are not issued for feeding them.

Doyle said that if officers are receiving a number of calls about an aggressive raccoon they may try to locate and remove the animal. However, usually people are advised to contact pest control and set out traps. He said he had not read the report on Wilcox’s incident yet so he could not comment on how the raccoon would be dealt with.

Wilcox’s violent encounter with a raccoon was the first of two attacks reported within the last two weeks. On Wednesday night, an unidentified woman was walking her two small dogs in Coal Harbour around 10:30 p.m. when she was assaulted by a large raccoon that onlookers called “psycho.”

When the woman picked up one of her pets to protect it, that appeared to make matters worse. The raccoon then leaped up at the woman, biting and scratching her legs, torso and arms.

Eventually the raccoon was scared off, but not before police said the woman and at least one of her dogs sustained minor injuries.

With files from Canadian Press

knursall@vancouversun.com

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