Raccoon with head stuck in tree rescued

Tuckerton, New Jersey, is a place where people know people, and people help each other. That's how Assistant Fire Chief Lee Eggert describes his hometown. It's also a place where firefighters help out animals who get their heads stuck in trees.



That was the case on Tuesday afternoon when Eggert's neighbour peered out to see a chubby raccoon in her tree. "She came out and saw it flailing around in there," Eggert said. "He had been clawing at the tree for a while," Eggert added.





Eggert said he heard his neighbour's call at 1:28pm over the police scanner. Eggert's wife called the wife of Wayne Tonnesen, a retired New Jersey conservation officer.





Eggert said it appears as if the raccoon stuck his head in the knot to get a nut left behind by another animal. But he couldn't get his head back out. Tonnesen was able to chisel away bits of the wood to make the hole larger for the raccoon's head. The animal then scampered away. Firefighters say it had no apparent injury.