

How a Kids’ Cartoon Created a Racoon Invasion in Japan (2013) - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/blog/how-a-kids-cartoon-created-an-real_life-invasive-army

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slacka
A mother with her cub was hit by a car in front of my house when I was a kid.
The mother didn't make it, so we raised the raccoon in our home. For the first
couple years it was a better pet than our dogs and cat. After the second
year,it started spending more and more time outside and less time with us. By
the 3rd year, he stopped his regular visits and would only occasionally visit
from a distance.

In an alternative history, where humanity started in North America, I could
see the raccoon filling the place that the cat does today. Considering how few
generations it took to breed tame foxes, I'm surprised no one has done it for
raccoons.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox)

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murbard2
Anal glands. I suspect the domesticated silver fox has the same problem.

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dyeje
Could you elaborate? I'm not sure what you're replying to.

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murbard2
I'm replying to the question as to why there isn't selective breeding of
raccoon to make them suitable as pets.

A likely reason is that they have a very strong and unpleasant musky odor.
Though I suppose that could be bred out too.

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dsr_
"Raccoons are also important vectors for the spread of infection diseases.
They’re known to carry rabies, and a 2011 report in the Journal of
Parasitology even found evidence for the potentially dangerous and brain-
altering parasite Toxoplasmosa gondii in raccoon droppings."

It would be fairly surprising if raccoons didn't carry toxoplasma: pretty much
every US cat does, about 60 million Americans, and 5-7% of Japanese cattle and
swine. It's rare that it causes problems for anyone except newly infected
pregnant women.

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lazythrowaway
Every _stray_ cat has the toxoplasma virus.

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stefantalpalaru
Toxoplasma gondii is a unicellular eukaryote, not a virus.

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simonh
Racoons are a problem in Germany as well(1), where they were deliberately
introduced for hunting.

1\. [http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-
overrun-...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-overrun-by-
raccoon-invasion-a-847847.html)

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ilamont
Reading this article reminded me of a documentary I saw a few years back about
hunters in England attempting to slow the spread of North American grey
squirrels. It's an uphill battle, according to the European Squirrel
Initiative (1):

 _The grey squirrel was introduced to England, Scotland and Ireland from North
America in the Victorian era. It has colonised 90% of England and Wales and
has expanded from its introduction sites in Scotland.

In Britain, it has few natural predators. It has successfully adapted to
British lowland conditions. It is omnivorous, breeds strongly and is an
aggressive settler equally at home in urban parks and the countryside.

Grey squirrels are vectors of the squirrelpox virus for which no vaccine is
presently available and which is deadly to red squirrels but does not seem to
affect the host. This research is cited as a "useful example of how diseases
carried by invading species can act as biological weapons and speed up their
conquest of native species.”_

Squirrels are unbelievable pests where I live (near Boston, Mass.) but at
least local hawks, eagles, coyotes, and cars, along with acorn famines every
few years, help regulate the squirrel population.

1\.
[http://www.europeansquirrelinitiative.org/the_threat.html](http://www.europeansquirrelinitiative.org/the_threat.html)

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kchoudhu
The obvious solution to Britain's squirrel woes is therefore to introduce
hawks, eagles and coyotes, no?

(My services as a wildlife consultant are available to HR Environment Agency
at any time for a nominal fee.)

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arethuza
We already have plenty birds of prey (including golden eagles and, here in
Scotland at least, sea eagles). There is even occasional talk of re-
introducing wolves.

The real problem is that we already have a native species of squirrels, red
squirrels, which everybody loves and are being out-competed by the grey
squirrels.

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kchoudhu
I was kidding around: introducing more invasive species to counter invasive
species seems to be a common (unfortunate) trope when attempting to get rid of
unwanted critters.

(Also: Arethusa...are you a Cryptonomicon fan, by any chance?)

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arethuza
Yeah - been using the same id since Slashdot days (which I only seemed to have
stopped using in 2010).

I guess I am quite the Neal Stephenson fan - my WoT and XBL ids are variations
of Fraa Jad.

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NDizzle
Growing up in rural Arkansas I never considered raccoons cute or cuddly. The
ones you meet out in the forest there are basically nature's version of the
ninja. Vile things that will hiss at you and attack animals of any size.

It wasn't until I moved to California that I saw the suburban variety of
raccoon. I was taking the trash out to the dumpster when I came upon this fat,
slow raccoon waddling across the parking lot. Seeing me made it waddle
slightly faster, at a point where it tried to go underneath a Civic. It was
too fat to do that and got stuck halfway and squealed a little bit before it
glanced back at me and waddled around the car.

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cafard
They are not cute or cuddly. And unfortunately there is a lot of rabies among
the ones in the eastern US.

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pervycreeper
>the best antidote against the anthropogenic origins of animal invasions is
wildlife education. If more people understood that raccoons do not make good
pets, no matter how adorable, Japan might not be in the unfortunate position
in which they now find themselves

Not a particularly good solution in a world without time travel.

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zhemao
What on earth were the kids' parents thinking? You would think they'd be
somewhat wary about buying a wild animal known for spreading disease to be a
pet for their children.

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aikah
"but it's so cute..." /s

Reminds me of a Futurama episode...

But pretty much everytime men introduce new species in an ecosystem,it seems
to have dire consequences. Which shows that ecosystems relies on a delicate
balance.We often think we're in control of all this,but not really.

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Dylan16807
Depends on if you classify nearly any possible change ever as 'dire'.

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thaumasiotes
As far as I can tell, the dominant philosophy is something like this:

\- Humans clearly involved in change to the ecosystem: dire.

\- Human involvement in change to the ecosystem not immediately apparent:
possibly not dire, pending further investigation into the role of human
involvement.

Fishermen introducing fish into a lagoon is an environmental disaster;
hurricanes doing the same thing is just more of the majesty of nature.

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m_mueller
At the end the genepool of species is a natural resource- a mechanism that
allows the ecosystem to adapt faster to new (possibly man made) conditions.
This is important to us, especially considering that the atmosphere is about
to change quite drastically. Obviously there's natural fluctuations in the
gene pool, but we should simply regard it as a resource that shouldn't be
spent lightheartedly. You wouldn't introduce a fish to a small lake if it
means you destroy a billion dollar rare earth material would you?

~~~
Dylan16807
It's not like things are perfectly adapted. Many changes will put species
closer to their ideal and give them a larger safety zone.

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m_mueller
I didn't say that there shouldn't be any change though, all I'm saying is that
we should be careful, i.e. study the environment as much as we can before
committing irreversible changes.

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Dylan16807
But when you talk about the genepool as a resource that is spent in response
to change, you imply that all changes are bad and deplete the flexibility of
the species. Changes that relieve stresses can give you more flexibility.

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ChuckMcM
Clearly Disney needs to introduce Japan to the Daniel Boone character such
that every child in Japan will want a coonskin cap :-) Here in Northern
California racoons are a menace, they use the sewer system as their own little
underground highway, and they dig up gardens and lawns. They are smart enough
that it is difficult to trap them with a catch and release trap.

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thaumasiotes
If raccoons are a menace, what's the idea behind catch-and-release? How would
that damp down the raccoons?

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ChuckMcM
I live in California, and just because something is a menace and has no
redeeming qualities, if it is a mammal it is "illegal" to kill it without a
license. The best you can hope for is to have vector control (the department
that picks up various animals) euthanize if if they see it more than a few
times get caught.

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ak217
I expected this to involve Pom Poko
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pom_Poko](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pom_Poko)).
Instead I learned that the US had an industry exporting raccoons to Japan!

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TazeTSchnitzel
That's about raccoon dogs (tanuki), not raccoons.

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narrator
Just another example demonstrating that advertising and propaganda work,
almost too well.

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squozzer
Sometimes life DOES imitate art.

