Rocky Raccoon might better find a new place to haunt, as legislation introduced Thursday in the state House would lift a decades-old ban on trapping the critters across most of North Georgia.
Rep. Emory Dunahoo, R-Gainesville, introduced House Bill 160, which would strike the ban on trapping raccoons "in that area north of and including Carroll, Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Barrow, Jackson, Madison, and Elbert counties at any time during the year."
Dunahoo said the bill comes at the request of the Department of Natural Resources. Apparently, there’s been a rash of rabid raccoons in many of the counties, and the agency wants to make it legal for residents to take care of the pesky, masked marauders without fear of being ticketed.
The ban dates at least 50 years, Dunahoo said, to a time when raccoon fur was valuable. To protect the species, the state limited where raccoons could be trapped.
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