A coon maybe? Sounds more like their behavior. Don't think it was a possom. We have an abundance of possoms here & they've never once disturbed my pond in all these years (despite the fact that dh encourages them!)

My vote would be the raccoon. For info and amusement do a search on this forum.

I say racoons. I have both possums and raccoons, last night the coon was in the back yard when I walked out there and there were little wet coon prints all around the pond area. Guilty! As far as I know the coon has only gotten into the pond once, which did cause major displacement of my plants.

The fish were scared for a week at least.

The local masked bandit ripped my plants out and kidnapped a fish. :-(

sleeplessinftwayne, I did a search and was not amused-only terrified that all of our work to have this lily pond will be for naught. We have no fish and all it did was make a mess-didn't even eat anything. I'm going out there now with my fingers crossed.

Raccoon!!!

neither groundhogs nor opossums would ever do that kind of damage.

My educated guess is coons they love to hunt in shallow areas of ponds. Net the pond or better yet employ a Fido fence to keep them out. Easy to install and serves to deter herons if you chose to add fish.

I also agree. I can't think of any other animal that will go to the water just to do that. Also, racoons are not that so afraid of water unlike cats.

I live in an urban area of Kansas City and have plenty of red fox, raccoons & opossums. Only the raccoons seem to bother with the water plants (they seem to be partial to my water iris) and fish. You might try a motion activated light to scare them away. If you try tapping & releasing them, try marshmallows & peanut butter (you do have to take them some distance or they will come back & there are laws in many areas about relocating wildlife). When I rebuilt my pond I made it 3 feet deep with strait sides & no marginal planters convienient to the edge, problem seems to be solved (now if I could keep them from washing this dinner in the bird bath & mudding it up)!

My husband modified a Fishock fence from Petco to look nicer than plastic poles and wire.

It's bamboo and copper tubing now.

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