My husband, Ray, recently suffered the traumatic experience of walking out to our water garden and discovering, floating amid the lily pads, 171 belly-up fish, many of which — among them, Spot, Big Red and Clown — were named. Ray initially stocked the water garden, which he hand-dug with a shovel on the hottest day of the year seven summers ago, with a dozen fish. The fish did the rest, causing Ray to lament, “Seven years of fish procreation down the drain!”

Clearly, the raccoons that visit our birdfeeders couldn’t be blamed for the catastrophe, although they feasted on the defunct fish — some measuring more than a foot from nose to tail — for several nights, making me worry that they would develop a taste for seafood and kill the new fish when Ray replenished the pond next spring. To date, the coons have never bothered the fish, preferring instead to gorge on costly black-oil sunflower seeds.

Our friend George — father to our daughter-in-law, Val — lost his fish to an otter, a predator inclined by nature to dispatch fish. Unlike Ray, who sticks to cheaper goldfish varieties, such as shubunkin and sarasa fantail, George stocks his water garden with large, colorful and very expensive koi. In spite of efforts to deter it, the otter slaughtered hundreds of dollars worth of fish named for George’s grandchildren, three of whom he shares with us. It’s disconcerting, to say the least, to be informed that Gabe, Sammi and Zoe were eaten by an otter.

Otters are critters we haven’t seen in our neck of the woods, but we have an abundance of deer, coyotes, wild turkeys and, of course, raccoons with a hankering for sunflower seeds. Frankly, I’d much rather buy sunflower seeds than fish for the ring-tailed bandits, and so would Ray. Sure, he pretends he doesn’t hear the coons when they go bump in the night, but he’s way too smart to think our wild bird dependents could dispose of four gallons of seeds in a 24-hour period. And even if Ray could sleep through the noise of six or seven coons nightly banging the feeders against the deck railing, he couldn’t possibly miss the gifts they leave in gratitude for our providing their dinner.

But on a recent night, to the coons’ — and my — shock and awe, Ray charged out of the bedroom, flung open a door to the deck and, clad only in goosebumps, yelled at the top of his lungs, “HIYAH! HIYAH! HIYAH!” I don’t know if it was his earsplitting screaming, the violent waving of his arms or the combination of the two, but it had the same effect on the coons clinging to the birdfeeders as the wail of the siren on those occasions when Ray forgot to turn off the alarm before opening the door. By the time I looked out the window, all I saw were wildly swinging birdfeeders. I only hope the coons climbed down rather than jumped from the deck railing — a good 14 feet above the ground.

Perhaps coons, like cats, can fall great distances and always land unhurt on their feet. On the other hand, if a raccoon broke his leg jumping off the deck railing, I fear he’d be fair game for the coyotes who visit the area under the deck to eat the meat scraps Ray persists in giving them in spite of my protests. If you think the yip-yip-yooooooooing of coyotes in the distance is entertaining, you should hear them close-up, fighting over meat scraps.

Ray claims that the meat scraps are intended for Pepper — our vicarious dog who manages to be a boy named Pepper when on our land and a girl named Susie with our neighbors who own him/her — but Pepper doesn’t always get to them first. Hopefully, when the coyotes visit, Susie is at home cozily dreaming of chasing bunny rabbits.

Did I mention we have bunny rabbits? Not only that, but bunnies that have a malicious agenda. They exist, Ray contends, to bite off his flowers and young trees. “I wouldn’t mind so much if they’d eat them,” he says, “but they bite them off and leave them just to irritate me.”

Happily, he cannot blame the bunny rabbits for the loss of his fish, because bunnies don’t like to swim. Frankly, I didn’t know they could until that crazy rabbit tried to climb in a boat and attack President Carter when he was fishing, forcing a secret service agent to beat it off with an oar.

So … if not coons, otters or rabbits, what killed the fish? Beats us! That’s why we’re planning on calling in CSI.

Marsha Henry Goff is a freelance writer in Lawrence. Information about purchasing her new book, “Life Is More Fun When You Live It Jest for Grins,” is available by calling 843-2577 or e-mailing mhgink@netscape.net.