WOODBURY, Conn. (WJAR) \u2014 A Connecticut man has become quite close with a raccoon that has been visiting him daily for over a year. <\/p>\n
Dick Clark, 82, has lived on nearly three acres of land that lines a land trust for years. <\/p>\n
He’s always enjoyed feeding the birds, and the nature that surrounds him, but last year, something unexpected happened.<\/p>\n
“I was sitting outside on my back patio in a lounge chair, smoking a cigar because I don’t smoke in the house, this raccoon just came walking up to me, just strutted up, stood there, looked at me, didn\u2019t run, didn\u2019t do anything,” he said. “I was memorized on her ability to get that close to me.”<\/p>\n
From then on, the raccoon began to visit every night at his home for the next month.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if she felt comfortable with me, but then she came back with five babies after a month of bonding, let\u2019s say, with myself,” he said. \u201cI was intrigued that a wild animal would have that much confidence in someone, or a person who may be a threat to them, but somehow or another I think they have a sense that they can tell whether a person is approachable or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark began leaving grapes and marshmallows out for the raccoons. <\/p>\n
Eventually in November, they went into the woods for their deep sleep.<\/p>\n
He wondered if they would return, and to his surprise, one did.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeveral weeks ago I was sitting out there and sure enough here comes this female, young raccoon, who obviously had given birth recently and she came right up to me again, I think it was one of the babies from the first time,” said Clark. \u201cAfter two or three weeks then she got up in my lap, but I didn\u2019t want her to get any closer than that because she\u2019s still a wild animal\u201d<\/p>\n
The raccoon, once again, visits him each night between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m.<\/p>\n
Clark has a motion-censored security camera, so when he gets an alert that she’s out there, he makes his way to his chair to spend some time with her.<\/p>\n
Several of their visits have been captured and documented by his family.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen she doesn\u2019t show up for a day or two, which is very rare, I actually get quite worried. Did she get hit by a car? Or did another large animal attack her? But she always shows up a day or two later,” he said. \u201cYou get the same feeling, or at least I do anyways, of having one of your kids out in high school who didn\u2019t come home at curfew, didn\u2019t call mom or dad, it\u2019s the same feeling but I realize humans are here, animals are here, and it\u2019s always going to be that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark said he understands that feeding wildlife is not advised, and the potential dangers he faces with coming into contact with a wild animal.<\/p>\n
He said he’s always on the look out for a change in her behavior, and he monitors her well-maintained fur. He makes sure to wash his hands frequently as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s two reactions. Most people are amazed these animals are so friendly or attracted to humans, other people say, ‘What\u2019re you doing that for? You\u2019re going to ruin them, that’s not their environment,’ but they are in their environment. The most important thing is it just keeps me occupied. I enjoy doing it,” he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s become a hobby or sort of a pastime. I\u2019ve always loved animals,” he said. \u201cIt\u2019s my therapy I think. I wear a glove on my right hand to give her the grapes and marshmallows and she gently takes the things out of my hand. I don\u2019t need to use the glove but I\u2019d rather be safe than sorry.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WOODBURY, Conn. (WJAR) \u2014 A Connecticut man has become quite close with a raccoon that has been visiting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[22747,2000,37163,37162,7221,617,79,37164,201],"class_list":["post-47388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-bond","tag-connecticut","tag-dick-clark","tag-feeding","tag-nature","tag-raccoon","tag-science","tag-therapy","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}