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I think most people would place raccoons pretty low on the list of animals they’d be overly concerned about encountering in the wild, but based on what’s currently unfolding in Germany, there are probably plenty of residents there who have a different stance on that particular topic.
Raccoons are technically native to North America, but they’ve slowly but surely been able to expand their global domain thanks to visitors from abroad who’ve brought some furry souvenirs back home with them over the decades.
In the 1930s, raccoons began to establish a foothold in Germany after a pair of them were released into the vicinity of the Ederseer reservoir a year before more than two dozen animals that were being kept at a fur farm in Wolfshagen staged a successful escape.
The population eventually boomed to the point where Germany declared raccoons an invasive species, and while it provides hunters with permits to cull them on an annual basis, it appears those attempts to eradicate the animals leave a bit to be desired.
According to The Telegraph, Germany is continuing to wage a war against what one newspaper in Frankfurt has described as a “plague” of raccoons that have made life miserable for residents who have become increasingly frustrated (and worried) about the damage they’re able to cause.
Germans who’ve been impacted by the raccoons have observed them breaking into homes and causing an impressive amount of damage in the process, blame them for killing pet rabbits and fish, and assert some of them have developed a taste for beer that could play a role in their fairly brazen behavior.
While the majority of the raccoons that call Germany home reside in rural areas, they’ve begun to amass larger numbers in cities like Berlin, although officials there declined to allow hunters to go after them by voting down a measure that would’ve allowed them to issue permits in 2022.
That may end up changing in the near future if these problems continue to persist.