Raccoon droppings drive state lawmaker’s vote

DES MOINES — An alleged animal defecation incident during RAGBRAI led one Iowa lawmaker to lend his support to legislation designed to curtail the state’s booming raccoon population.

Iowa Sen. Bill Dotzler, a Democrat from Waterloo, on Monday evening regaled the Iowa Senate with his story of how a raccoon once defecated in a hat that he had been wearing during RAGBRAI, the annual bicycle race across Iowa.

Dotzler told the story — which left in stitches Democratic and Republican legislators alike — during debate on a bill that would allow Iowans to trap or shoot raccoons. The state’s raccoon population has tripled since 2006, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

Dotzler started his remarks on the Senate floor Monday night by declaring, “I’ve got a real problem with raccoons.”

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He went on to describe an incident during a recent RAGBRAI. Dotzler said he was traveling with a bus — as do many RAGBRAI riders to transport equipment, food and other necessities — when he apparently failed to completely secure a window, which left an opening for a raccoon to forage through the food on the bus.

“A raccoon crawled up on the hood of my bus, hung off the mirror, and got his paws … slid open the window and got in there and had a feast inside my bus,” Dotzler said. “He ate all kinds of stuff.”

But that wasn’t the worst of it, he lamented, detailing what happened next to his hat that commemorated a previous event that had started in Glenwood.

“That raccoon defecated in my hat. On the way out of the bus,” Dotzler said. “I mean, there’s something cynical about raccoons.”

The bill, House File 317, passed the Senate with a 48-2 vote. It previously passed the House on an 87-11 vote, and thus now goes to Gov. Kim Reynolds for her consideration.

Comments: (515) 355-1300, erin.murphy@thegazette.com