Carpenter fired for saving raccoon from trap at construction site

A raccoon that was trapped at SFMOMA's expansion project is seen in a cage. Todd Sutton, 49, a carpenter at the project, was fired for releasing the animal before it could be euthanized. A raccoon that was trapped at SFMOMA's expansion project is seen in a cage. Todd Sutton, 49, a carpenter at the project, was fired for releasing the animal before it could be euthanized. Photo: Todd Sutton Photo: Todd Sutton Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Carpenter fired for saving raccoon from trap at construction site 1 / 4 Back to Gallery

Carpenter Todd Sutton showed up to work one recent morning at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art expansion project and found he wasn’t alone.

Inside a metal trap on the construction site was a raccoon. The animal had been causing trouble, as raccoons are known to do, so the builders hired professional trappers to have it removed and euthanized.

Sutton, 49, knew the animal’s fate, and as he and several others stood around the cage that morning, he felt compelled to act. But the choice he made to save the raccoon frustrated his employers — and cost Sutton his job.

“I was just doing what I thought was right,” Sutton said. “He was just a little baby. I said, 'I’m not going to let this happen. I’m going to do what is necessary for this raccoon.’”

The unusual episode — which is sure to divide people based on their feelings about animals in general and raccoons in particular — unfolded Feb. 27 in the city’s South of Market.

Sutton recalled that he “told everybody else to scatter” before he grabbed the cage and put it in the bed of his pickup truck, which was parked nearby.

He called San Francisco Animal Care and Control to see what the protocol was on releasing animals, and, as he waited to hear back, he returned to his job as a carpenter foreman overseeing a team of drywall installers.

'I didn’t deny it’

That afternoon, he said, he got a call from his boss, a superintendent with RFJ Meiswinkel Co., a firm subcontracted by Webcor Builders, the project’s general contractor.

“When they accused me, I didn’t deny it,” Sutton said. “I didn’t think I’d really get in trouble. I said, 'Are you really going to let me off the job?’”

Sutton said Webcor asked that he be removed from the museum project and that his boss at RFJ Meiswinkel opted to fire him outright. The decision came as a shock, especially with the animal still in the cage in his pickup.

“The raccoon was out safely in the truck,” he said. “He was covered up. I was trying to keep him in the dark, because you know, he’s a nocturnal animal — he was just chillin’.”

Sutton later learned from city animal control officers that he was required to release the raccoon near where it was trapped, so he wouldn’t violate state wildlife regulations.

So he drove the bandit-masked mammal down to the Embarcadero and let it go in a grassy area under “Cupid’s Span,” the large bow and arrow sculpture near the Bay Bridge. He then returned the trap to the construction site.

Matt Rossie, a vice president at Webcor, said in an interview that the situation was a bit more complicated.

Raising a red flag

The raccoon had come into the building from the sewer and was damaging the site — part of a $610 million project. More importantly, Rossie said, “If one of the workers inadvertently cornered the animal, we could end up with a bad encounter. Someone could get hurt.”

Sutton’s decision to sneak off with the trap raised a red flag with his employers, Rossie said.

“We were concerned he had taken something that didn’t belong to him and left the job site,” Rossie said. “We asked Mr. Sutton to go home for the day, and that for him to remove any property from the job site is basically theft and it wasn’t going to be tolerated.”

RFJ Meiswinkel’s managing director, Kristen Meiswinkel, was out of the country last week and unavailable for comment on why Sutton was fired.

Bewildered, Sutton contacted San Francisco employment attorney Stephen Jaffe, who sent his client’s former employer a letter — and is mulling possible legal action.

“You don’t have to be an attorney to have common sense,” Jaffe said. “I personally think Todd is a hero. Why would any company take such a strict position on killing an animal?”

Jaffe, though, isn’t sure whether the firing was illegal.

Major nuisances

One thing that’s clear is that the company hired to destroy the raccoon was acting within the law. Under state law, nonnative animals that are damaging property or crops can be legally trapped and euthanized by licensed companies.

Raccoons that nest in structures can be major nuisances. The animals can rip through duct work and insulation in search of bedding material while chewing up electrical wires.

In the spring, mother raccoons look for nesting space to give birth, often sneaking into attics, crawl spaces and walls of homes and businesses, where they defecate and urinate. Dozens of licensed companies in the Bay Area trap and kill the pests.

But there is an alternative, said Jamie Ray, director of the San Francisco Rescued Orphan Mammal Program, who was sympathetic when told of Sutton’s firing. Her group will remove unwanted wildlife without killing it.

Ray said her organization will “provide effective, inexpensive and humane solutions to whatever wildlife behaviors bother people. Our motto is no animals have to die to address a wildlife problem.”

Since his ouster, Sutton has moved on to another construction job in the South Bay. It’s less lucrative, but he doesn’t regret his actions.

“I wouldn’t change it. I’d do the same thing again,” he said. “This whole thing was just nuts.”

Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky