Rocket Scientist Duped By Raccoon Gang

Couple finds raccoons are worthy foe
By CHARLIE PATTON, The Times-Union

When George and Phyllis Davenport retired nine years ago, they hoped to savor the natural beauty of Northeast Florida in their new home near the Intracoastal Waterway.
In the marshland behind their house, they saw blue herons, egrets, ospreys, a family of eagles, even an occasional alligator. Also raccoons. George Davenport loved the raccoons.

Uh oh.

"They're so adorable," he said.

Uuh-OH!

Ah, but he soon discovered they aren't just adorable. They are relentlessly clever.

And evil.

Davenport is, by profession, a scientist. A rocket scientist.

A Rocket Scientist.

blah blah blah, skip ahead. He and Phyllis first came to Jacksonville in October 1963. They were newlyweds, and he'd been hired as principal engineer for Thiokol Chemical Co.'s Large Solid Rocket Motor project near Kingsland, Ga. They settled in Jacksonville. Later, he worked as principal engineer for reliability engineering for all ground support equipment on the Apollo Project at Cape Kennedy. "My career followed rocket trails," he said. Nine years ago, after a bout with colon cancer, the father of two and grandfather of four retired. He and Phyllis built a home in the Gately Oaks neighborhood, just west of the Intracoastal Waterway near Mayport.

As part of his plan to "smell the flowers, listen to the birds and love my family," the professional engineer devised an elaborate system of pulleys and baffles to keep furry critters out of his bird feed.

Rocket Scientist wins battle against life-threatening illness only to wage war against bird feed marauders!

As his wife said, "A man who helped put a person on the moon should be able to outwit raccoons."

You'd think.

There followed what Davenport calls the "raccoon wars," with "measures followed by countermeasures" as he has battled to keep the squirrels and raccoons out of his bird feeder.
It got to the point, Davenport said, that he expected to walk out one day onto his back porch and find the raccoons soaking in his hot tub, sharing a wine cooler.

Nah, they were doing that around 2am. And hitting on your granddaughters.

Still, when a reporter and a photographer visited a couple of weeks ago, Davenport appeared to be temporarily triumphant. His latest modification, involving a system of wires designed to provide a mild shock, was working.

Fry, little bastards, FRY!

But Davenport admitted, "I know somewhere deep in the swamp the raccoons have called a conference."

Yes, yes they were.

So his most recent e-mail came as no surprise. "The raccoons have figured out a way to defeat my deterrent; they hang from the pole by their hind feet and stick their noses into the bird feeder hole," he wrote. "... These raccoons are amazing in their persistence and resolve; we could all take lessons from them!"

In how to be evil!