Raccoons are showing early signs of domestication • Hacker News Board

Re: Raccoons are showing early signs of domestication

#141

Post by zygentoma » Tue, Nov 18, 2025, 12:44 PM UTC

_the_inflator wrote: post #132

So 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…

> Yes, it is of course in Germany forbidden to kill an invading predatory species - even on your property. This is Germany 2025.

This is blatantly false.

The nandus that are living in the north can and are being killed for exactly this reason: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nandu#Wilde_Population_in_Nord... (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_rhea#Distribution_and_... for a shorter paragraph in English)

I guess there is a more nuanced reason for not killing the raccoons in Kassel.

Re: Raccoons are showing early signs of domestication

#142

Post by SpaceL10n » Tue, Nov 18, 2025, 12:47 PM UTC

chasing0entropy wrote: post #139

Racoons, 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, bu…

To be fair, if you take something away from me that's mine, there's not much difference between the raccoon and myself.

Re: Raccoons are showing early signs of domestication

#143

Post by PepperdineG » Tue, Nov 18, 2025, 1:03 PM UTC

BirAdam wrote: post #64

aerostable_slug wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine trying to keep an animal like that out of food it's not supposed to have (to include fish tanks). The dang things would probably learn to pick locks with their cute little hands.

This is precisely why I think exceptionally smart animals should never be pets: octopus, corvids, raccoons…

Raccoons are also social animals so they like to maintain good relations. My mom is friends with wild raccoons and they never try and break in even though they know there is food inside. The raccoons try and open the sliding glass door but they don't become home invasion robbers if they don't find food outside and can't get in through the door. What's funny is that her cats like to watch the raccoons for entertainment and will touch paws on glass but if only a screen door separates them the cats get very upset and frighten the raccoons who just want to be friends. Their intelligence seems to help them get along, like there's one raccoon that my mom has named and it comes when called and can understand my mom through the Ring doorbell. It understands that it is her voice but not her presence so will wait like a dog that has taken obedience. The raccoon is disabled having only one eye, so it survives through intelligence like befriending my mom and is the friendliest of all the raccoons.

Re: Raccoons are showing early signs of domestication

#144

Post by amypetrik8 » Tue, Nov 18, 2025, 1:04 PM UTC

zukzuk wrote: post #135

gwd wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>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.

Well if you ask me adolescent raccoons are a big problem in many of our cities, I'd be worried about such a case myself.

Re: Raccoons are showing early signs of domestication

#145

Post by NalNezumi » Tue, Nov 18, 2025, 1:06 PM UTC

gyomu wrote: post #113

riffraff wrote: post #88

Earlier 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 :(

And the anime was so popular it led to raccoons being imported en masse to Japan and becoming an invasive species when their owners released them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rascal_the_Raccoon#Impact

I learned about this 2 years ago when a racoon showed up in Tokyo close to where I lived. [1]

wild to think they spread even all the way to Japan because of anime. and probably south Korea now. They banned raccoons in Japan but it seems to not have caught up in SK and there are a lot of racoon pet videos from SK on YouTube)

[1] https://youtu.be/P2yDY5HlUBw?si=YP_Bkd_oQZ86YOHt

Re: Raccoons are showing early signs of domestication

#146

Post by myrmidon » Tue, Nov 18, 2025, 1:13 PM UTC

zukzuk wrote: post #134

_the_inflator wrote: post #132

So 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 ou…

Kassel is under 200k people, with ~100 raccoons/km² though!

Curiously, that raccoon population was established legally and intentionally in the 30s to bolster local fur production; later efforts to eradiacte the animals (for being pests from an agriculture perspective) have been given up.

Damage to local ecosystems seems fortunately pretty limited, even though the raccoons are highly successful and spreading.

Re: Raccoons are showing early signs of domestication

#147

Post by lagniappe » Tue, Nov 18, 2025, 1:24 PM UTC

SpaceL10n wrote: post #142

chasing0entropy wrote: post #139

Racoons, 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, bu…

To be fair, if you take something away from me that's mine, there's not much difference between the raccoon and myself.

You should work on that.

Re: Raccoons are showing early signs of domestication

#148

Post by dhosek » Tue, Nov 18, 2025, 1:39 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #93

shawn_w wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cats get vaccinated against rabies. I doubt there's one for racoons.

Raccoons actually do get vaccinated against rabies. There are large scale programs operated by the US government and state governments that regularly distribute vaccine laden baits from Maine to Alabama, to keep rabies from spreading to raccoon populations west of the Appalachians. If a breach occurs they also will trap raccoons and vaccinate them by injection in the area of the breach.

At first I read that as vaccine laden bats and for a moment, the world was just a little more delightful.

Re: Raccoons are showing early signs of domestication

#149

Post by dhosek » Tue, Nov 18, 2025, 1:39 PM UTC

dhosek wrote: post #148

tzs wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raccoons actually do get vaccinated against rabies. There are large scale programs operated by the US government and state governments that regularly distribute vaccine laden baits from Maine to Alabama, to keep rabies from spreading to raccoon populations west of the Appalachians. If a breach occurs they also will trap raccoons and vaccinate them by injection in the area of the breach.

At first I read that as vaccine laden bats and for a moment, the world was just a little more delightful.

Or terrifying.

Re: Raccoons are showing early signs of domestication

#150

Post by LandR » Tue, Nov 18, 2025, 1:42 PM UTC

jb1991 wrote: post #101

I_am_uncreative wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus, there are vaccines to prevent it.

If you were talking about the rabies vaccine, for humans, that’s not really a normal vaccine for people to get. It’s not like getting the flu vaccine or the chickenpox vaccine or others, and they shouldn’t be lumped into that same category.

How is it not?

I'm currently 1 of 3 injections into getting a rabies vaccine and it's basically like every other vaccine I've had. A simple, painless, injection in the arm.

I got it the same time as my first shot of the Hep B vaccine too.