Glemie Dean Beasley, urban raccoon hunter
Glemie Dean Beasley, 69, hunts raccoons in Detroit and sells their pelts and meat. My old journalism school pal Charlie LeDuff profiles Beasley in today's Detroit News. All of Charlie's work is fantastic. From the feature (click image for full photo by Max Ortiz):
"To urban hunter, next meal is scampering by" (Thanks, Gabe Adiv!)Beasley, a 69-year-old retired truck driver who modestly refers to himself as the Coon Man, supplements his Social Security check with the sale of raccoon carcasses that go for as much $12 and can serve up to four. The pelts, too, are good for coats and hats and fetch up to $10 a hide.
While economic times are tough across Michigan as its people slog through a difficult and protracted deindustrialization, Beasley remains upbeat.
Where one man sees a vacant lot, Beasley sees a buffet...
He procures the coons with the help of the hound dogs who chase the animal up a tree, where Beasley harvests them with a .22 caliber rifle. A true outdoorsman, Beasley refuses to disclose his hunting grounds.
"This city is going back to the wild," he says. "That's bad for people but that's good for me. I can catch wild rabbit and pheasant and coon in my backyard."
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Other than the legalities and safety issues of discharging a firearm close to populated areas I fully support this.
Without predators the urban critters can overpopulate and become diseased. It is probably better for Mr. Beasley to trap them.
I used to spend every summer with family in Detroit. I recently was using google earth and Microsoft live earth to look at where I used to play (around 7 mile and Gratiot). Things hadn't changed much. When I looked at the street, just a few blocks away, where my aunt and uncle lived (Saratoga) there were entire blocks with 4 houses left standing, and everything else just grass covered lots.
Its kind of spooky. Detroit isn't a dying city, its already an undead city.
Some of us would look at returning the city to green spaces and a more rural way of life as a renewal rather than a death.
Yes, but you probably don't have wonderful childhood memories of Detroit either. It isn't like folks can't already have a rural way of life...and I think that the majority of people in Detroit don't WANT a rural way of life so much as they just want to survive.
But regardless of that, Detroit is a dying city. That death might not be a bad thing, cities die, but we could at least recognize that.
I have nothing against eating animals; but I'd be a bit nervous about what these ones might contain. Raccoons are serious omnivores and I suspect they might well be quite good at concentrating lead and other persistent nasties.
This is... pretty sweet.
All true. They don't even bother to try to trap the coyotes any more. They're too smart, and there's nobody much to bother. My father's friends who hunt game birds drive in with their dogs to walk the abandoned lots to train them.
This week our neighborhood has been hosting a large flock (20 - 35 individuals) of Turkey Vultures. They're HUGE, and circle slowly just like in the movies. THAT is depressing.
Now this story, coupled with the one from a short time ago about artists buying up the vacant houses in Detroit? There is a real opportunity for Detroit to become something wholly new...which would be really cool.
As it is, I could buy my grandmother's entire old block from about $150,000...Great prices on land, if only there was real industry to support the people living there.
Is raccoon meat OK to eat?
I don't really have a problem with this, but I do think it's a bit weird that the article says the guy "harvests" the raccoons with his gun. The dogs chase it up the tree, and then he "harvests" them - no death involved! A miracle!
Is raccoon meat OK to eat?
When I worked in the hospital, the big diet manual in the pantry had nutritional information for raccoon and possum.
Okay, I was all ready to make a joke about "cook with coon" NOT being an appropriate caption for that photo-- and then I saw this:
http://www.detnews.com/article/20090402/METRO08/904020395/To+urban+hunter++next+meal+is+scampering+by
This will generate photos on the web for years to come.
From the video:
"That's how the back legs look. Nom nom!"
When I growing up in rural Missouri, we had a neighbor that ate raccoon. I asked him how it tasted and he replied, "Now yer coon's a might on the greasy side."
can Detroit be re-imagined as a reprise of the Disney idea of a frontier? Consider this carefully.
Yuk! Times cannot be that hard where you want to eat a large rodent scampering around in your yard.
I've had raccoon, we called it mapache. I do remember it being dark, like turkey leg or other game. That was in Mexico, a bit far from Detroit.
I see this all the time in Baton Rouge. I'm always struck by the weirdness of old black men holding a sign that says "COONS."
Ah! Mapache was the name of Mexican warlord in "The Wild Bunch!" Nein! Nein! Das is falsch!
Anyway, this is not as depressing as the segment with the rabbits in "Roger and Me."
I also fully support this. Mr. Beasley is right, too many people don't have the skills it takes to fend for themselves anymore. Obviously he's having no problem doing so, cheers to resourcefulness!
Honestly, if prepared right, it doesn't taste bad.
Considering that raccoons primarily live off garbage in the city, I really don't want to think about the disease and filth in these creatures. Yuck. That aside - how long before the IRS hunts this guy down to get him for all that unclaimed income? :)
Okay...would any of you consider eating street pigeon ? That's the same if not worst.
This guy has either the world's most kickass kidneys, or serious health troubles to come.
Ryan Waddell, but I bet it tastes delicious. Catfish is also a scavenger, cleaning the goop up off the bottoms of ponds. But it tastes great.
That which does not kill us makes us stronger, right? What's a little lead or mercury between friends? (or rather, between predator and prey?)
For some reason this reminds me of the segment in "Roger and me" which shows the dude who raised rabbits for food in Flint.
If you think you're avoiding all those grand ol' toxins in our environment by avoiding 'coon meat, I would like to say you're deluding yourself. Besides, I think raccoons, like most mammals have kidneys, which filter out some of that stuff, like it does in us.
Groan . . . let the stereotyping begin.
We feed all sorts of strange things to factory farmed animals (ground up animals of the same species, for instance). Animals like raccoons and pigs naturally eat trash. As long as you avoid eating the organs (where toxins collect), what's wrong with eating street wildlife? Fully cooked, you're protected from disease.
"if it is thoroughly cooked, there is small chance of contracting rabies from the meat"
That answers my only question, sort of. . . what do they mean by "small chance"? HOW small?
"Animals like raccoons and pigs naturally eat trash."
No they don't, it's a learned and adapted behavior. No animal is born to eat trash, they adapt to doing it because it's the easiest source of food. Wow, you sir are a genious. Next you're going to be telling us how dog food is grown in the wild and that there's natural litter boxes of actual kitty litter in the wild that cats use.
What is this, National Raccoon For Dinner Week? As it happens, my latest Sky Full of Bacon podcast is also about raccoons for dinner, though in this case it's the annual Coon Feed at the American Legion in Delafield Wisconsin, featuring an 85-year-old lady who jams on the alto sax, Al Capone, a molecular gastronomy chef and Time magazine:
http://www.vimeo.com/3908958
"...I'd be a bit nervous about what these ones might contain...concentrating lead and other persistent nasties."
There are a lot of people in the Detroit area who get their raccoon from up north, in the wild, for that very reason. You are what you eat, and a raccoon that's been eating other animals and plants is going to be different from one that's been eating leftover McDonald's and other random trash.