How many do you want?
I have worked at a couple of zoos, and on a farm, and in conservation projects in South America and kept a few odd pets in my time, so I have a fair old list of critters than have got me at one time or another. Mostly almost harmless injuries and generally they were my fault, but sometimes animals get mardy for no apparent reason and you just don't see it coming, or you make a serious mistake... I have been clawed by a (baby) tiger, been swiped at by an oryx, bitten on the face by a spider, had some near misses with deadly snakes, and had a possum sink its fangs into my thumb, but my only really serious injury was at the hands of a coati. For those who don't know them, they are cute little womble-like raccoon things with whiffy noses, orange fur and stripey tail. They make good pets when tamed properly or are nice dociel femles, and are evil fuckers when they are bad tempered males who have been mistreated. You probably know already what I was dealing with.

Anyway, I was at a conservation station in Peru (one of those 'gap year project' thingies that was actually quite crap - badly set-up by people who had no knowldeg of conservation or animal handling) and we ended up with a coati. Our leader (who could not have found his arse with two hands and a map) had decidedin his ignorance that buying unwanted pets form the local population (we were deep in the jungle on the madre dios) would semhow a) not encourgae them to get more pets to sell us by going after the wildlife we we supposed to be protecting, and b) would somehow survive fine once we released them back into the rainforest.

So one day so me farmer turns up with a sack that has apparently been paid for and dumps a large, aggressive and beligerent male coati quite literally on our doorstep. These things are agile and intelligent and as say he was half-tame already and wary, but not afraid of humans. If he was not caught and dealt with (well, released a good few miles away from us) he would hang around the camp, steal food, bite people, kill our own livestock (chcikens and terrapins) and generally be a pain. Only I am one of our guides had any animal experience and the previous owner had left th moment the bag hit the ground, so it wa sup to us. Nando had a decent grab at him and missed, andafter that the coati was wary of him and kept his distance, leaving muggins to do the dirty and catch the little bugger.

Not having handled them before I concluded the best thing to do was to pin him to the floor. Just use my weight and get on hand on his neck and another on his body and simply hold him down so others could bundle him into a sack. I knew that had been teeth and a mean bite, so Iwas going to be cautious. But then I made my big mistake - I took some advice. With this kind of thing, where you don't know the animla you should go with what you know, or at least a technique you have confidence in, but Nando assured me I could scruff him (pick him up by the loose fur at the back of the neck) if I was quick and since he had at least worked with coatis before, I took his advice. Big mistake.

While distracted with some eggs we through to him, the male let me get behind the Uncle Bulgaria-alike as he was been careful to keep Nando is his sights. I nearly went back to my origianl plan, but my friend urged me on, and so I stepped forward, grabbed a handful of skin and fur and lifted.

Coatis, I now know, have a *lot* of loose skin. I barely had him a foot off the ground when he turned and bit my thigh. Hard. Twice. I was immediately left with eight puncture wounds about half an inch deep in my left thigh (four in front and four behind) with a nice line in serious scrathes from all four of the little sod's legs making severl long parallel rakes down my thigh and calf. At this point I let go, but rahter than taking to the hills as you might expect (and as I expected), the damn thing hung on and continuted to scratch and bite. Now, I *do* have expecience with animals, but there are times when thought and training go out the window and you perhaps run around screaming with an angry and growling animal savages your leg and blood turns your socks and boots red and you repreatedly beat it over the head trying to make it let go. This may have been such an occasion. My heroic colleague in the meantime was doubled up with laughter, tears streaming down his face and pointing, barely able to speak even Spanish with hysterics as he wathed my pantomime attempts to remove said animal from my anatomy. Occasionally words like "blood" and "keeps biting" and "funny" would creep out, but noting especially helpful for removing a furry gin-trap from my thigh.

Eventually the thing got bored as far as I could tell s it just let got, dropped off and casually wandered back to the eggs it had left behind and carried on eating. With the nearest town being about 20 miles upstream, medical care was limited to some plasters and antiseptic and I basically had to sit still for three days becuase very time I tried to walk, the wounds would open up again becuase they were so deep, and in the heat and humidity they wouldn't clot quickly. I had scars for about 3 years, both from the teeth and claws.

Distracted by more eggs, Nando caught the coati about two hours later. By pinning it to the ground...


I guess the moral is go with your instincts and trust yourself. Oh yeah, and coatis are mean bastards with lots of skin, no matter how womble-like they might appear.
(Bob the Scutter, Thu 24 Apr 2008, 16:21, Reply)