LINDALE, Texas — When David Herndon, a pastor in Lindale, found out one of his members was fighting a losing battle against raccoons on her property, the avid hunter decided to step in. What unfolded next was a surprise.
“Then my wife said, 'one of them was white,'" Herndon said. "And I said, “‘Excuse me?’”
It was an albino raccoon, which is very rare.
“You only have a one in 750,000 chance of seeing one,” Herndon said.
It took a few tries to catch the unmasked bandit. The key trick to lure them in is with food they enjoy like cat food or sweet bread, he said.
“My wife on Monday had just made a loaf of zucchini bread," Herndon said. "I managed to get her to give me a piece of that zucchini bread and behold, that raccoon jumped right in that little cage.”
Herndon placed one piece of the bread at the trap's entrance and one deep inside the cage. Once the raccoon came in and stepped on the trigger trap in front of the bread, the trap door closed and secured the animal inside.
“I think it was the zucchini bread. I really do," Herndon laughed.
Trapped and out of harms way, the hunter surrendered the raccoon to a nearby animal sanctuary.