EveryoneNeedsAHome, Inc.

An all-volunteer, 501(c)(3) animal welfare organization dedicated to the spaying and neutering of cats and dogs in the Lafayette and Green Counties of Wisconsin

If you shop at Pick ‘N Save and aren’t already enrolled in the Pick ‘N Save Advantage® WE CARE donation program, please consider choosing ENAH as your charity of choice.  It’s easy to sign up at Pick ‘N Save’s Service Desk and the program is free.  Once signed up, every time you shop with your Advantage Saver’s Club card, Pick ‘N Save will donate a percentage back to ENAH.  Our organization number is 208875. 

Writings by Other Folks

Letter addressed to the person
who deliberately ran over a raccoon by my house

Margaret A. Miller, 09/30/02

This letter is addressed to the person who deliberately ran over a raccoon by my house on Sunday night September 29^th, in Southwest Wisconsin.  I was outside doing chores.  I heard you come down the hill and slow your car to a stop.  I saw your taillights waiting on the hill below my house and, in those few short seconds, I prayed that you were a compassionate, kind person, stopping to let an animal cross the road safely in front of you.  But you were not.  Did you hear the screams of pain after you ran over that raccoon?  If you did, I hope those screams never leave your memory.  I heard the screams. 

I grabbed a flashlight and ran down the road as your taillights disappeared.  I did not know what kind of animal I would find when I reached the limp form laying in the middle of the road.  However, when I got there I saw almost immediately that it was Kukla, the big beautiful raccoon that I had rehabilitated, cared for, and loved for months before I released her back to the wild, the world to which she was born. 

You were not with me as I rushed her to the Emergency Clinic for Animals.  You did not hear her as she whimpered in pain during the car ride, and you did not see her beautiful ears turning towards me whenever I talked to her, telling her that she wasn’t alone and that I was not going to let her suffer.  You did not see the wonderful veterinarian as he gently felt her wounds and told me that she didn’t have a broken back and that we could be “cautiously optimistic” that she didn’t have internal injuries.  She does, however, have a shattered hind leg.  So hear this, person.  Your cruelty did not win this time.  An animal you have crushed will survive, and will recover.

You have not seen the network of people who care about wildlife here in Wisconsin, those who have been teaching me how to help and to heal, and those who worked on Kukla to save her.  These people care about wildlife, regardless of whether the animal is endangered or not.  Let me tell you something, person.  You are outnumbered. 

Is running over animals fun for you?  If so, then society should be very worried.  As surely as if you had strangled her with your own hands, you have tortured an animal.  Do you run over other animals in addition to raccoons?  Perhaps people’s pets, a farm dog or cat wandering a little too close to the road?  Or perhaps opossums because I’m sure you think that, like raccoons, they have no right to life either.  Do you ever think about the animals still alive after you drive over them, about the intense suffering they feel as their life drains away?  Let me tell you this, person.  You have no right. 

You may laugh at me, say that raccoons are a nuisance, say that we should get rid of them.  In response, I ask you what right you have to determine who lives and who dies?  If raccoons are a nuisance, it’s because humans have created the environment where they have become nuisances.  We’ve taken away and destroyed most of the places where wildlife can live and die by their own rules of survival.  They have no place left to go.  They either learn to adapt or the species dies off.  Raccoons, probably because of their incredible intelligence, have learned how to adapt.  You should have their intelligence.

I am beyond angry at your cruel act and I cannot comprehend the type of person that you are.  I keep repeating to myself Romans 12:19, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, saith the Lord” so that I do not think of ways that I can get back at you, so that, in my anger, I am not degraded to your level.  I have also begun praying for you, and for all people like you, people who have no tolerance for living beings that don’t fit in with your idea of a perfect world.  I pray that some day soon, you will learn a respect for all life.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll be able to pray that, when you do learn this lesson, it is an easy one and you are spared from the kind of agony that Kukla felt last night, and all the other animals that you have imposed your cruelty on, those you have tortured and those you have killed.  But not today.