A raccoon boot camp in Mississippi teaches abandoned kits survival skills

PASS CHRISTIAN, Miss. (AP) — Muddy, sweat-soaked and occasionally bloody, the dedicated staff at a Mississippi wildlife center are drill sergeants. And their soldiers? Baby raccoons.

Welcome to raccoon boot camp, where the goal is to help sick or injured animals learn to survive in the south Mississippi wilderness — a skill set they would have learned from their mothers, most of whom died or were separated from their kits by storms, traffic accidents or other traumatic events.

It's a challenge that's left Woodside Wildlife Rescue’s founder, Paula Woodside, with cuts from scared, defensive raccoons and their sharp claws, and when she isn’t able to save a kit, emotional scars too.

“When these babies come in, and they’re so desperate, it’s heartbreaking,” said Woodside, who most days is covered in sweat from caring for the animals in the Mississippi heat, and dirt from curious kits crawling up her legs and onto her shoulders. “It’s really important for them to get a little bit of a head start.”

Woodside, a former U.S. merchant mariner, opened the rescue in 2019 after she helped rehabilitate a baby raccoon found aboard her ship. The rescue in the coastal city of Pass Christian typically raises dozens of kits each year, 76 so far this year, alongside other indigenous wildlife.

City animal control and citizens call Woodside, or the rescue’s director, Raquel Priest, when they find a raccoon in need of saving. Together, they attempt to reunite the kits with their mothers, if they can find them, or bring the kits to the rescue.

The youngest raccoons will spend a few weeks mostly indoors being bottle-fed by rehabbers until they’re vaccinated for diseases carried by cat colonies and dogs and are ready to move to outdoor pens.

Though the kits stay close to their adoptive human parents, they’re eventually allowed to roam free during the day on the rescue’s rural 20-acre (8-hectare) property, a sprawling mix of meadows and thick forest spotted with ponds and a nearby river. Thanks to that setting, Woodside and Priest can take their troops on learning excursions, a luxury many wildlife rescues don't have, Woodside said.

Woodside and Priest teach by example. They hide worms in the dirt to show the kits how to dig for food, and break open pine cones or acorns to reveal the seeds inside. The raccoons' eyes light up when they encounter a new tasty food, and they run to show their discovery to their rehabbers before hurrying back to fend off other kits who might try to steal their find.

Where a drill sergeant might yell, ‘Attention!,’ Priest and Woodside give a shrill trilling sound, mimicking the raccoon call for danger, that sends the kits running up trees to safety. A short whistle lets the troops know the coast is clear.

The kits also practice fishing in shallow pools, their uncoordinated paws tentatively patting the water until they're quick enough to snag a snack. A live quail hunt provides hunting experience. While these are skills raccoons would likely learn on their own, Woodside’s staff hopes the training gives the kits a greater chance of survival.

On the property's pond, the raccoons learn to swim, a critical skill in hurricane-prone south Mississippi. The rehabbers take to kayaks and encourage the kits to swim back and forth. They also take trips to the deep woods, where kits learn to run from tree to tree to avoid being seen by birds of prey and to have a quick escape route from snakes or other dangers on the ground.

For their final lesson, a volunteer — who isn't Woodside or Priest — traps the raccoons in cages, scaring them enough to encourage them to avoid traps and humans. The experience helps the young raccoons wean themselves from their human rescuers, a process Priest said naturally occurs as they mature.

When a group of kits is ready for release, about six months after their rescue, Woodside and Priest host a graduation ceremony. They play Edward Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance Marches,” and read a roll call of each graduating kit's name.

A reverend then blesses their journey as they're released onto a different section of the rescue's forest-covered property. For kits that die in care, the staff holds a second ceremony to bless and scatter their ashes.

“It's like watching your children leave home,” Priest said. “It's important to see them prosper and go and be the mischievous creatures they were meant to be.”

A raccoon kit peers through an enclosure at Woodside Wildlife Rescue on Sept. 1, 2026 in Pass Christian, Miss. (AP Photo/Sophie Bates)

A raccoon kit practices swimming, while supported by Woodside Wildlife Rescue Director Raquel Priest, on Sept. 1, 2026 in Pass Christian, Miss. (AP Photo/Sophie Bates)

Raquel Priest, the director of Woodside Wildlife Rescue, holds a raccoon kit over her shoulder on Sept. 1, 2026 in Pass Christian, Miss. (AP Photo/Sophie Bates)

A raccoon kit digs through water and mud at Woodside Wildlife Rescue in Pass Christian, Miss. on Sept. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Sophie Bates)

The main Kremlin party retained its majority in Russia’s parliament, election officials said Monday, after a carefully orchestrated balloting that excluded most opposition candidates and helped the government maintain its tight grip on power.

Results from over 95% of the polling stations gave the Kremlin’s United Russia party just under 58% of the vote for the 225 seats apportioned by parties, according to the Central Election Commission. Another 225 lawmakers were chosen in single-ballot races, and the results showed United Russia candidates leading in 208 of those races.

Central Election Commission chair Ella Pamfilova said the preliminary results indicated that United Russia would get 355 seats out of 450, a record high for the party, if confirmed.

It was the first parliamentary election since President Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and the first to include residents of four regions of that country that were seized and illegally annexed by Moscow later that year. Voting also was held in Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014. Kyiv denounced the voting in those regions as illegal.

The Kremlin tightened its crackdown on opposition ahead of the election, including barring Russia’s only liberal, anti-war party from the ballot and allowing it to compete only in single-ballot races.

Along with United Russia, several other parties that almost always vote for Kremlin initiatives also won seats in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament. A handful of seats will go to several candidates who ran without a party affiliation in single-ballot races, according to preliminary results.

The Kremlin has sought the parliamentary election to showcase popular support for the war, and strove to avoid political risks by stamping out any dissent.

A massive state media campaign and tight control over the election in the absence of genuine opposition left little doubt that Kremlin will keep tight control of Russian politics as economic costs rise and Ukrainian drone attacks increase deep inside the country.

Voters cast two separate ballots over three days, from Friday to Sunday, filling half of the Duma’s 450 seats by selecting political parties listed on the ballot. The rest were contested in single-seat constituencies, with voters choosing individual candidates.

Electronic balloting was available in many regions and encouraged by authorities. Critics said it made it easier for the government to control the outcome of the vote.

Pamfilova said turnout was just over 59% — the highest in a parliamentary election in over a decade. The final results will be announced Friday. she said.

The liberal Yabloko party, the only registered political entity that dared to publicly criticize the war, was removed from the ballot last month by Russia’s Supreme Court, and only has a few dozen candidates in the single-constituency races. Additionally, some anti-war politicians were imprisoned or forced to flee abroad ahead of the campaign.

Yabloko and the Communist Party, which has criticized some aspects of government policy but carefully avoided any criticism of Putin, said many of their observers were turned away from polling stations.

Russia didn’t invite observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, with the Russian Foreign Ministry accusing the body of “double standards” for its criticism of Russia. OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Pere Joan Pons said that the decision was a breach of Russia’s commitments as a member state of the organization.

At one polling station in the Russian-held part of the Donetsk region, voters dropped their ballots in a box as an armed Russian soldier stood nearby and watched.

Vladimir Yakushev, a secretary of the General Council of the United Russia party, speaks during a news conference following parliamentary elections, in Moscow, Russia, Monday, Sept. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

Vladimir Yakushev, a secretary of the General Council of the United Russia party, speaks during a news conference following parliamentary elections, in Moscow, Russia, Monday, Sept. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

A voter fills-in a ballot during Russia's parliamentary election in Donetsk, in the Russian-controlled part of the Donetsk region, Ukraine, Friday, Sept. 18, 2026. (AP Photo)