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[Julie928]

I'm hoping those of you who share my love for water gardens can give me some suggestions.  We have a pond with a waterfall in our backyard.  It's a nice size, about 16 X 14 and three feet deep at it's deepest point.  We have four koi and one BIG goldfish that call our pond home.  The other morning I went outside to feed the fish and was scared to find one of my heavy concrete frog statues knocked to the side and the other statue knocked into the pond!  I also have a very heavy cast iron sitting mermaid perched on one of the large rocks and that was knocked into the water as well.  All five fish were accounted for but were very skittish.  My husband & I draped a net over the front area of the pond but the fish seemed to be freaked out by it ~ they wouldn't swim anywhere near it.  I should mention that I went a little overboard with the plants but that turned out to be a good thing since over half the water surface is covered with greenery and that gives them good cover.  They also have a large cave they can swim into.  Someone at the pond store suggested using fishing line about six to eight inches above the ground and use stakes to create a fence of some sort.  We did that this afternoon and removed the net and the fish seem much happier.  But.....I went outside to check the pond and there was a big old raccoon up one of our trees!  We had one of our coonhounds outside and she made her presence known to him or her.  Okay, sorry to be so long-winded but wanted to give all the details with the hope that someone might be able to offer us some suggestions to keep them away from our pond and keep the fish safe.  :-)

[Lila4Now]

Don't know where you live, lack of water sources and high heat will bring several visitors to your pond.  Just a basic fact of nature.

[Kachina624]

Trap and release elsewhere. Sometimes local animal control agencies have traps you can borrow. They may or may not help with relocation. Also contact your state wildlife/fish & game department and see they can be of assistance. These things will hang around until they get your fish if you don't get rid of them.

[Suzy Snowflake]

This solution worked for us. Soak tennis balls in ammonia for an hour. Put them in areas that are generally visited by those pesty varmints. They hate the smell and stay away. Re soak after a few days and after a rain. This really works great.

[wismiss]

We had a raccoon (maybe racoons) catch and eat some fish from our pond years ago.  One of the necessities is to have plants for the fish to hide and not be seen.  I know that may sound strange, but they will hide if they sense danger.  We also put a fine woven net over the pond so the raccoons could not get to the fish.  We left it on for about two weeks and the raccoons finally got the message and didn't come back.  We used strawberry netting, or it might also be called bird netting.  We also put clumps of our dog's hair in several places a little way away from the pond.  

Good luck in your endeavor to ward off those rascals.  They got a $20 fish from our pond, so we knew we had to do something.

[Drythe]

This is going to be a little delicate to say!

If you have male dogs, or if your husband is willing, a few sprinkles around the pond will usually deter the Raccoons.

Of course if you have neighbors nearby, this might have to be a night time foray.

Good luck.

[ID2]

If it were me I would get a live trap. Trap them one at a time and release them miles away. I did that to a squirrel that wanted the inside of my garage as his home. He now resides on a nice lake front property of one of our lovely parks.

[Nataliesgramma]

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@ID2 wrote:

If it were me I would get a live trap. Trap them one at a time and release them miles away. I did that to a squirrel that wanted the inside of my garage as his home. He now resides on a nice lake front property of one of our lovely parks.

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Thats what we did......borrow a trap..throw in a can of cat food and you will be better off removing it.

[evelyner]

My mom has a pond, and raccoons used to come, so they covered it with a mesh net.

[Sweetbay magnolia]

Put those coonhounds to work!  (I have two).  I guess that's not really a viable option, as they are bred to track and corner for the likes of a hunter . . .