Nine years ago, a couple in upstate New York were asked a simple question. Could they take in two hurt baby raccoons?
They said yes. They had no idea it would change the rest of their lives.
Today, Paul and Sarah Bookbinder estimate they have helped more than 800 raccoons.
And it all started with two tiny kits they couldn’t save.
Stanley and Laurel
Paul Bookbinder is a veterinarian. For years, his patients were cats and dogs.
So when someone asked if he and Sarah could take in two abandoned and injured raccoons, he was willing. There was just one problem.
He knew nothing about treating raccoons.
The couple kept the baby raccoons, called kits, in their bicycle shed. It was only supposed to be temporary, while they found a licensed wildlife rehabilitator.
But they got attached fast. They named the kits Stanley and Laurel.
“There’s an intelligence behind their eyes that, once you connect to that intelligence, it’s not like any other animal,” Sarah said.
“It takes your breath away.”
They called around for help. They couldn’t find a wildlife rehabilitator with room for two more raccoons.
A few days later, Stanley and Laurel died.
The couple cried and buried them in their backyard.
And they made a decision. That would never happen again.
53 Acres in Earlville
The Bookbinders bought a 53-acre property in Earlville, New York.
In 2018, they opened a raccoon rehabilitation center there. The following year, they sold their house and moved onto the land to live with the animals.
They named it the Charles N. Gordon Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, after Paul’s late uncle.
According to the center, his modest inheritance was enough for the down payment on the property.
Since then, the couple has poured nearly all their time and savings into caring for abandoned and injured raccoons and releasing them back into the wild.
They’ve even engraved pictures of raccoons onto their wedding rings.
“My mother has resigned herself to the fact that her grandchildren are mostly raccoons,” Sarah, 54, said.
Every morning, she said, she wakes up with the same question: “What can I do today to make it better to be a raccoon?”
200 Bottles a Day
Spring is the busiest time of year, because that’s when raccoons are born.
Wildlife officials, veterinarians, friends and strangers from across the state bring them orphaned kits.
Often the babies have been left alone because their mothers were hit by cars, shot or got sick. Sometimes the kits themselves are hurt.
The Bookbinders even keep a net and gloves in their car, just in case they come across an abandoned kit.
Sarah bottle-feeds the babies a special formula made for raccoons. They eat between two and eight times a day.
Nothing prepared her for that first spring. She went through more than 200 bottles a day.
“The first minute I bottle fed a baby raccoon,” Sarah said, “I understood what my hands were for.”
Learning to Be Wild Again
The goal is never to keep them. It’s to send them home.
When the raccoons are about 3 months old, they move into sheds filled with natural food like nuts, eggs, worms and crickets, buried under dirt so they learn to forage.
There are hammocks, ladders and tire swings to climb on.
Sarah tries not to interact with them much. She doesn’t want people talking around them, so they won’t grow to depend on humans.
They know a raccoon is ready when it starts hiding from people, growling at them and trying to escape. That usually happens in late summer or early fall.
The center borders about 600 acres of state forest, so there’s plenty of room to roam.
The couple still gets emotional at every single release.
“It’s like your kid going off to college,” Sarah said, “except that you’re never going to see them again.”
The Hardest Days
Not every story ends with a release.
In 2023, Paul operated on a raccoon whose jaw was broken beyond repair. Without being able to eat, the raccoon would have starved.
Paul broke down in tears in the surgery room when he realized the kindest choice was to let him go.
“We always tell each other that we’re not the ones that matter. The raccoons are the ones that matter,” Paul, 66, said.
“And if we have to suffer in order to help them, then as long as we’re physically and mentally capable of doing it, we’re going to keep doing it.”
Peanut, Tribble and Cosette
About two dozen raccoons live at the center for good, because their injuries mean they couldn’t survive in the wild.
There’s Peanut, who has a balance condition that keeps him from climbing down.
And there’s Tribble, born with legs so short she can’t climb at all. The Bookbinders take her for walks in a baby stroller.
Some raccoons surprise them.
One arrived dragging her chin along the ground because she couldn’t use her front legs. The couple thought she might have to stay at the center for good.
A few days later, Sarah found her inside a heating duct. She had climbed in there. Using her front legs.
Her name was Cosette. She kept getting stronger, and about eight months later, she was released into the wild.
A Garden Full of Names
After every release, the Bookbinders engrave the raccoon’s name on a rock and place it in a garden among irises and lilacs.
The raccoons who died in their care get a rock too.
That garden has grown so much, they’re running out of space.
“We’re actually in the process of redoing the rock garden because we ran out of room,” Sarah said. “We never thought it would be this big.”
It began with two names. Stanley and Laurel. Now there are hundreds.
If you ever find a baby wild animal that seems to be alone or hurt, don’t try to raise it yourself. Call a licensed wildlife rehabilitator near you for advice.
Would you ever devote your life to an animal most people overlook? Tell us in the comments.
