UPDATE: SC Raccoon-Torture Event Canceled! 

Update (September 11, 2026): The so-named “Coondog Treeing Contest” in Pinewood, South Carolina, where a trapped raccoon was to be suspended from a tree as hunting dogs encouraged to reach the petrified animal, was scheduled to occur during September 12’s “Possum Trot” festival. However PETA has just received word from the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources that event organizers have been informed of potential legal violations, and that this portion of the festival will not take place. Thank you to SCDNR, the festival organizers for their decision, and to all of you who spoke out!

Original post:

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