Let’s be clear: Raccoons aren’t inherently bad. However, their presence can have an unwanted impact on your yard, as they may tear up your lawn, rip open your garbage, or damage your property in pursuit of a new nest. In these cases, the raccoon is only doing what it knows—looking for food, and finding shelter.

Fortunately, there are ways to make your garden less appetizing for a wayward raccoon. Here, we spoke to wildlife experts about the best, most humane methods for deterring these animals, as well as the tactics you should never try and implement.

Secure Your Garbage

One of the most appetizing food sources for a foraging raccoon is a garbage bag that’s been left unprotected. Instead: “Store [it] in a wildlife-proof container with a secure, tight-fitting, or lockable lid, and keep the bin in a garage or shed,” says Brad Gates, owner and president of Gates Wildlife Control.

Timing is also important. Raccoons and many other foragers are most active at night, so it’s best to only put your garbage out for collection in the morning.

Check Your Bird Feeder

“People love to feed birds, but bird seed will tip out of the bird feeder, and that’s going to attract raccoons, skunks, foxes, and coyotes,” says Bill Dowd, president and CEO of Skedaddle Humane Wildlife Control.

However, that doesn’t mean you have to get rid of your bird feeder altogether. Like most forms of raccoon prevention, it all comes down to maintenance. “Make sure you’re out there on a daily basis cleaning up any of those spilled seeds,” adds Dowd.

You can also add a steel raccoon baffle to your feeder pole to stop raccoons from raiding the seed supply.

Maintain Your Lawn

Grubs are another food source for raccoons, and will attract these animals to your yard. Worse, once they arrive, they’ll dig up your grass looking for the critters. Fortunately, good lawn maintenance can help prevent grubs through practices like deep, infrequent watering or introducing beneficial bugs that serve as natural predators.

Keep an Eye on Your Produce

Your tomatoes and apples are delicious and will look beautiful on a plate, but raccoons love them too. Staying on top of your harvest will help reduce this food source, but you may want to look into other preventative methods as well.

“One tool that does consistently delivers results is a motion-activated sprinkler,” says Gates. “When an animal enters the detection zone, it triggers a sudden burst of noise and water, which startles them enough to make a lasting impression.”

Monitor Potential Den Sites

Raccoons will often nest under decks or within sheds. “Homeowners need to be diligent, and check to see if there’s any digging [marks] or animals living under there,” says Dowd. Anything without a foundation is fair game.

If a raccoon has taken up residence beneath your home, then it’s time to consult the professionals. A humane wildlife control service can help safely relocate the animal.

Don’t: Trap Them

What you shouldn’t do is try to relocate a raccoon on your own. Trapping these animals can put them in real danger, and it won’t solve the problem either.

“When people see a raccoon in their yard, they’ll panic and think, ‘Why is that animal in the city? It should be trapped and taken out to the country, and live happily ever after,'” says Dowd. “That’s just not the case.”

If an animal has been foraging for food from garbage cans, then it won’t know how to hunt in the wild or how to interact with other species. As a result, many relocated animals die. Traps can also be inhumane, as trapped raccoons can die from heat exhaustion during the summer or freeze to death in the winter.

Traps can have the opposite overall effect as well. “[They’re] actually going to attract more animals, because you’re putting bait in that trap,” adds Dowd.

Additionally, trapping an animal is illegal in many states—so it’s a bad idea all around.

Don’t: Use Scents

Raccoons are highly adaptable, so while there are plenty of prevention methods circulating online, they won’t all be effective in the long run. “[They] easily avoid targeted scent areas, like ammonia-soaked rags,” says Gates.

Mothballs are another common solution that many might try after seeing it online. “They’re not only ineffective, but they’ve also been proven to be carcinogenic, and should be avoided entirely,” he adds.

You’ve probably seen a plastic owl standing guard over a garden or a scarecrow perched in a field. The idea behind these deterrents and decoys is that they’ll scare away birds and prevent small mammals from feasting on whatever goodies lie below. But do pseudo-avian predators and fake people do the trick?

It depends. Here’s why.

Scarecrows have long been the method of choice to dissuade birds from feasting on seeds and growing crops. These stick-like mannequins dressed in old clothes are placed in fields and gardens to ward off crows, sparrows, and other hungry birds.

But one of the problems with scarecrows is that they just stand there. Sooner or later, the birds figure out that the stick guy is not a real person because he doesn’t budge. Once they realize that, fear flies away.

“Many times they will turn scarecrows into a comfortable perch,” writes Avian Enterprises, makers of a bird repellent.

Realizing that scare-people aren’t all that scary, inventors came up with new and improved decoys. They tried owls because so many birds and small mammals, like rabbits, are frightened of the winged predator—and a frightened rabbit should be, in theory, less inclined to nibble on lettuce in a garden overshadowed by an owl.

Wising Up to Owls

Farmers, backyard gardeners, building managers, and homeowners hang plastic owls in hopes that hungry animals will recognize the owl shape and stay away. And that typically works, at least for a time.

A study by Linfield College found that songbirds are afraid of owl decoys. Researchers swapped out owl decoys for a cardboard box of the same size in an oak woodland within Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Then they measured how often birds visited feeders in the vicinity of the objects and found they were much less likely to go near the feeder when the owl decoy was stationed nearby; however, they weren’t scared one bit by the cardboard box. The birds did wise up over time, though. After a few days, they realized the owl was fake and returned to the feeder.

So it’s the scarecrow problem all over again. If something just sits there—no matter how frightening it appears at first glance—birds are smart enough to figure out it’s not all that scary.

Movement Is Key

Fake owls might work if you need to keep birds or animals away from somewhere for just a day or two. If you want to deter birds and animals for longer, consider moving your plastic owl around your house or garden so it looks like it’s real. Some people also tie their fake owls to a rope so they sway and move, almost like the owl is flying.

There are also special deterrent products that move and bounce constantly to convince hungry visitors that a scary animal is keeping guard.

Terror Eyes, manufactured by Bird-X, is an effective alternative to fake owls. The brightly colored balloon has fierce eyes that follow its prey. It bounces on a spring and moves constantly so birds don’t get used to it.

Some large farms have also turned to those inflatable tube men that you often see outside car dealerships. They dance and shimmy and whip their appendages all around. No bird would dare go near them.

California farmers use shimmering aluminum PET ribbons. They’re tied directly to the plants, reflecting the sun and scaring off any animal looking for a snack. You could do something similar with old CDs or garden spinners, though you should still move them around occasionally to prevent birds from becoming accustomed to them. You could also get a specialized version of a spinner, such as the Reflect-A-Bird Deterrent, which uses wind power and reflective surfaces to scare birds.

On the non-object front, people have turned to gas-powered propane cannons or flash powder to make loud noises that scare birds away from everything. But birds get used to these sounds, too, particularly if they’re emitted at steady intervals. Metal wind chimes can work, but they need to be placed in the garden where the plants are, not on a nearby porch. Move them around, too, to have a better chance of scaring away birds and other animals.

Rabbits. No matter how cute they are, they can be a nuisance if you’re a farmer or a gardener. For anyone who lives in an area where rabbit populations run rampant, allowing this furry species to thrive without human intervention may seem at odds with the desire to protect a garden.

Fortunately, there are several sustainable ways to keep rabbits out of a garden, from building fences to growing rabbit-resistant plants.

Identifying Rabbits in Your Garden

If you find evidence of uninvited diners in your garden, don’t assume rabbits are the culprits. Mice, squirrels, and other rodents are also opportunistic eaters. Here’s how to tell who is eating your plants.

• Rabbits are most active at dawn and dusk. Sit quietly in your garden during these times and see who arrives for a meal.
• Ask at a local greenhouse, garden center, or university extension service if rabbits are known to live in your area.
• Look for gnawing marks. Insects leave holes in plants. Rabbits nibble from the edge. They’ll leave your plants looking clean-cut rather than ragged.
• Rabbits leave round or oval brown-colored fecal pellets as they move around the garden. You might also find rabbit hair or fur caught on branches.

Keeping Rabbits Out of Your Garden

If you’ve identified your problem as rabbits, there are multiple ways to keep these critters at bay. The first step to take is to stay ahead of the problem by creating a rabbit-deterrent garden.