URGENT: Raccoon Torture this Saturday in South Carolina!  

Raccoons are highly intelligent and sensitive nocturnal animals who are capable of great suffering, just like our beloved animal companions. PETA has just learned that a “Coondog Treeing Contest” is apparently scheduled for this Saturday, September 12, as part of the Possum Trot event, in Pinewood, South Carolina. During this sadistic event a trapped raccoon will evidently be suspended from a tree as hunting dogs are encouraged to reach the petrified animal by launching themselves upwards—with the cage hoisted higher each round. This would of course be a terrifying ordeal for this entirely helpless wild animal, and arguably violates South Carolina’s Animal Fighting and Baiting Act § 16-27-10, which prohibits “fighting,” defined as “an attack with violence by an animal against another animal”; as well as “baiting … [which is]to provoke or to harass an animal with one or more animals with the purpose of training an animal for, or to cause an animal to engage in, fights with or among other animals.”

An image of a trapped raccoon from the 2025 event

Please join PETA in politely urging the Sumter County Sheriff and the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources to stop this portion of the Possum Trot—then forward this to everyone you know!   

Send polite comments to:

Sheriff Anthony Dennis
Sumter County Sheriff’s Office
[email protected]

Captain John Bedingfield
Regional Commander, Law Enforcement Division, Region 3
South Carolina Department of Natural Resources
[email protected]

South Carolina Department of Natural Resources