Feeding wild animals

[PapaDon]

My 92-year-old mother-in-law lives next door and loves to watch the wild animals feed on her porch. She throws out bread and puts out a pan of water every night during spring, summer, and fall. It attracts raccoons, skunks, foxes, coyotes, woodchucks, etc. -- sometimes with several species feeding at the same time. It is a nice sight.

Occasionally, she even goes out among the animals to throw out more bread or add water to the pan. Some of the raccoons will even take bread from her hand, and she'll sit down on a bench and feed them.

This has concerned us for the last few years and we've told her that it's dangerous, but she refuses to stop. She says its one of the few joys she has and she'll continue to do it. A possible attack on her, getting caught in the middle of a fight over food, and rabies are our main concerns, especially since she's often alone in the evenings. Even though we're close by (about 100 yards away), if something happened we might not know right away.

I don't think we're unreasonable in our concerns, but she's determined to keep it up, so we quit "nagging" a couple of years ago. Any thoughts as to how dangerous this really is? Should we not worry because she's willing to take the risk? After all, she is 92 and mostly housebound.