Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most cat breeds still look more or less like their wild relatives.
And then you have the fossa.
That's only a pretend cat, it's a lemur-thing really. Wait no, a civet-thing.
Raccoons are showing early signs of domestication
131–140 of 229 posts
Re: Raccoons are showing early signs of domestication
#132So Kassel, Germany, may have hope to be less harassed in the future?
FYI, Kassel kinda is the so-called capitol of raccoons. 30k+ raccoons life there, according to estimates.
I certainly would not want to live there. It is crazy how these animals flock together and invade properties. And they aren't shy anymore due to the reverse positive reinforcement they receive by not killing them.
Yes, it is of course in Germany forbidden to kill an invading predatory species - even on your property. This is Germany 2025.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DJXsI_A5DU
https://www.kassel.de/buerger/sicherheit_und_ordnung/tiersch...
Re: Raccoons are showing early signs of domestication
#133People have been trying to make the house raccoon a thing: https://old.reddit.com/r/raccoons From what I remember spending time on this topic, raccoons need super challenging locks as toys and TONS of engagement from their keepers because they get bored easily and bored raccoons == ultra destructive raccoons. Also, rabies.
Jep, just have a look here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45964090
It astounds me, that government still doesn't want to kill say 20k of these invaders.
Re: Raccoons are showing early signs of domestication
#134So Kassel, Germany, may have hope to be less harassed in the future? FYI, Kassel kinda is the so-called capitol of raccoons. 30k+ raccoons life there, according to estimates. I certainly would not want to live there. It is crazy how these animals flock together and invade properties. And they aren't shy anymore due to the reverse positive reinforcement they receive by not killing them. Yes, it is of course in Germany…
Toronto, Canada is hands down the raccoon capital of the world. Something like 100k raccoons live in the city.
I can’t get my head around how such big animals manage to live all around us in such densely populated place. I suppose it helps that they are cartoonishly adorable.
But they are increasingly getting really, really big. It’s just a matter of time before the chonker living in my neighbour’s shed bullies me out of my house.
Re: Raccoons are showing early signs of domestication
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're pretty great pets. We had one for a while when I was a kid. Its mom got run over and we nursed it and raised it for a few months. Instinctively used the same litter box as the cats. Hung out on the couch sitting on my shoulder watching TV. Friendly and playful. Would follow people around and play with toys. The biggest challenge is that they basically have hands. He would climb up the kitchen cabinets, grab a…
I remember reading somewhere once that baby raccoons are actually quite cuddly and tame; but that when they go adolescence, they have a hormone shift that makes them aggressive enough to be unsuitable as a pet. In the story a woman who had raised a baby raccoon was attacked by it after it grew to a certain age.
Judging by the murderous sounds you hear all night here in the summer, I would not want to be cornered in a dark alley by a gang of adolescent raccoons.
Re: Raccoons are showing early signs of domestication
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a Japanese anime from the '70s called something like "rascal the racoon", based on an American book, which tells the story of a kid with a pet raccoon. I've wanted a pet raccoon since I saw this on TV in the '80s, and raccoons aren't even a thing in Europe :(
Well at least in Germany they are a thing - a quick google search says there's a population of >1 million raccoons in Germany.
Can confirm. I was running through a forest in Berlin and saw a raccoon in a tree.
Was a little confused, but apparently quite a few around here.
Re: Raccoons are showing early signs of domestication
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're pretty great pets. We had one for a while when I was a kid. Its mom got run over and we nursed it and raised it for a few months. Instinctively used the same litter box as the cats. Hung out on the couch sitting on my shoulder watching TV. Friendly and playful. Would follow people around and play with toys. The biggest challenge is that they basically have hands. He would climb up the kitchen cabinets, grab a…
My wife and I wish our country didn't have such restrictive biosecurity laws, because AWWW THEIR CUTE LITTLE HANDS.... (I mean, there's good reasons my country does have those laws, and I don't _really_ want to have a wild animal as a pet, but I kinda do.)
on the other side - if not for these laws, somebody would have produced a pet racoon breed in several generations, smth like this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox#/media... (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox)
Re: Raccoons are showing early signs of domestication
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
Plus, there are vaccines to prevent it.
Yes, but the rabies vaccine is not really for "prevention" (with some exceptions, before someone comes "ackschually" here), more like post-exposure Because it sucks less than dying of Rabies and boy you don't want to know how low the bar is here
It's expensive but it isn't particularly bad to get.
I had a pretty low risk exposure to a bat this summer and decided to get it because it's so hard to be sure they didn't bite you. Wasn't a big deal, and I got quite a lot of the antibody injections in my finger...
Re: Raccoons are showing early signs of domestication
#139Racoons, even city's racoons are terrible beasts. Sure, they are friendly when they aren't upset; Take a treat away from the hands of the sweetest racoon and it will either pounce on you to retrieve it, scream bloody murder, or pounce and slash at you until you retreat.
Racoons, especially in the city, will kill and eat an older housecat or easy to access domestic chickens without hesitation.
Declawing them helps, but nature happens when a declawed racoon feels a call to roam and is outmatched by even a small hawk or possum.
Re: Raccoons are showing early signs of domestication
#140Raccoons have been living literally inside of houses for centuries. One was kept as a pet in Jamestown Virginia in the 1600s. Another lived in the White House in the 1900s. Surely, not a decade has passed between have there been NO domesticated raccoons in the US? If living near humans changes animals, that started at least 25,000 years ago here in North America. Not recently. My neighbors had a pet raccoon growing u…
Individual animals can be tame . Only entire populations can be domesticated . Two different things.
That doesn't mean the process is happening naturally as asserted. For instance, wild black wolves in the US got this trait from hybridization with domesticated dogs.