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A Texas high school is dealing with a raccoon problem.
Raccoons have been a problem at McCallum High School in Austin in the past, but it's been getting increasingly worse, according to a report from the school's newspaper, The Shield. A few weeks ago, a dead raccoon caused "widespread and odorous torment" in the school's main building. Now, the school has reported more than a handful of incidents involving the furry critters.
Two raccoons reportedly entered the school's main hallway through a weak ceiling tile. "I was walking down the hallway and I heard a loud 'slam' noise almost," student Ava Bernitz told the school newspaper. "And then I looked and saw two little raccoons walking around; one of them was climbing up the wall. One runs straight down the hallway, and the other turns — and then as I was watching, I start recording—and (it) runs down the hallway and then comes running at me, and I thought it was gonna attack me, and I was really scared; (luckily) it did not."
One of the raccoons was corralled just 5 minutes after it was discovered by a campus safety monitor. The second one made its way into a classroom, "startling" the students inside. "I thought that someone’s cat had gotten in for some reason, but as I see it running around the classroom, I realize it's a raccoon," student Thea Cahoon said. "It ran under my chair into the back corner of the classroom and everyone was screaming and stood on their chairs. It kept running and ran into (a teacher's) little office, and we were all sitting there, screaming."
This classroom was evacuated while several staff members tried to capture the raccoon using a trash can. The animal reportedly hid under a desk and urinated on the floor until it was captured and subsequently released.
Shortly after, a third raccoon was discovered entering the building, falling through the ceiling into a classroom. It escaped through another ceiling tile. This marks the third raccoon sighting in about 30 minutes.
"Honestly, they’re probably gonna be back in tonight. because this school's like a sponge; there's holes everywhere," Campus Safety Monitor Bob Bedard said. "There's squirrels and rats and other things; it's a 70-year-old building."
Bedard said it's likely these raccoons are babies of a raccoon that was found at the school a few years ago. "During the pandemic, there was this crippled raccoon, its front paw was crippled. And it had babies. It had four babies to begin with and then three, but I think the ones that we saw today were grown-up raccoons that grew up at McCallum. They’re true McCallum raccoons," Bedard said.