A baby burglar
‘Masked intruder’ freed from pipe
Staff writer
A masked bandit was caught red-handed — or, perhaps, black pawed — on a somewhat chilly day last week while trying to invade a house in the 200 block of N. Cedar St., possibly in search of warmth.
Assistant police chief Steven Janzen found a baby raccoon — about the size of a guinea pig, chief Clinton Jeffrey reports — stuck in a 90-degree bend in a vent pipe from a furnace at the home.
“It was pretty well exhausted,” Jeffrey said after the baby was freed from the pipe. “It at first appeared it was not going to make it but, once released near a wooded area, it scurried off.”
Although baby raccoons frequently travel with their mothers, no other coons were spotted in the vicinity.
The raccoon was just one of several animals from the wilds spotted in Marion in recent days.
Police also responded this past week to a report of a fox in a different residential neighborhood. An entire family of foxes is sighted regularly near Elm and Main Sts.
“One may be shocked by the amount of animals that travel the river bank that goes though the park,” Jeffrey said. “I have seen foxes, deer, coyotes, skunks, armadillos, opossums. It’s really a freeway for animals.”
Sometimes, apparently, they take an off ramp and end up a few blocks away in a residential neighborhood.