Hitler’s raccoons

November 4, 2015 • 1:00 pm

by Matthew Cobb

Yesterday I mentioned the brief return of Autumnwatch on the BBC (the autumn series only four days, while Springwatch sprawls over three whole weeks, simply because there’s more going on). Last night, on Autumnwatch Unsprung, the informal, on-line only magazine programme that follows the main show, presenter and naturalist Chris Packham came up with this gem – German raccoons and their link with the Nazis.

I missed it as I was watching Manchester City romp all over Sevilla (we won 1-3, and thereby qualify for the knock-out stage of the  Champions League), but the Springwatch tw*tter feed posted it this morning. The video should work if you click on it, wherever you are in the world. I had no idea there were raccoons in Europe – and so many!

[JAC: The Los Angeles Times gives the story of European raccoons, which appears to have nothing to do with Nazis, nor with their desire to march into London looking like Davy Crockett]

31 thoughts on “Hitler’s raccoons”

  2. “It’s a present of the American people,” Derk Ehlert, chief wildlife officer for the city of Berlin, said dryly.

    LOL while I somewhat sympathize, it appears from the article that it was Germans who chose to import our furry masked bandits, and mostly accident (a bomb hit a fur farm during WWII) that released them into the wild. And as far as invasive species go, they probably aren’t anywhere near as bad as kudzu. Thank you, Japan.

    You know what you need, Germany? Some imported coyotes and mountain lions to catch the raccoons… 🙂

  3. I had no idea that raccoons had invaded Europe, but i suppose it is not surprising as they are very adaptable and Europe would not even be a challenge. A few years ago I saw a documentary about the invasive raccoon problem in Japan. According to that source, there was a popular cartoon from the early ’60s about a boy and his raccoon and their adventures. That started a craze about the little varmints, and they were brought in as pets. The rest is entirely predicable.

  4. Hardest part about talking and teaching about invasive species is not sounding like a member of UKIP.

    1. Do you think that we could send UKIPpers back where they came from. (Mostly Essex – the damned German invaders!)

  5. Well, I shall have to keep an eye open. I had no idea that there were raccoons in the Netherlands. Not many of them – about a dozen records so far this year, it turns out.

    I played a very minor part in one of Chris Packham’s documentaries when he came to the Netherlands several years ago. He’s a most enthusiastic chap.

  6. Funny story – German raccoons. Here in the Midwest they are everywhere but not that much of a problem. Just last night I stepped outside to find Bumper, the outdoor cat and I saw what I thought were two cats, one chasing the other and up a tree they went. I grabbed a flashlight (in England a torch) and sure enough the cat lower down was Bumper. However, the other was much higher in the tree and was a raccoon, not a cat. I don’t know who was chasing who but I hardly think the cat would be chasing a raccoon.

    We have stairs leading to a balcony and that’s a problem because the coons are always coming up, looking in the window, and using the place as a restroom. Also, I always must bring the suet in at night or the raccoons will finish it off.

    1. It is a good thing that the raccoon decided to run rather than defend itself. They are not to be trifled with.

      1. You’re right about that. I just can’t believe Bumper was down low in the tree and the raccoon was way up there. Just no way he was chasing the raccoon.

        1. Its not that hard to believe. Most animals most of the time are not terribly aggressive (outside of predator-prey) and will not risk injury unless there’s a good reason to do so. Cats, however, can be extremely territorial. So I have no problem believing that a territorial cat got aggressive against a bigger, heavier, technically “higher weight class” raccoon and the raccoon decides to run for it rather than fight, probably win, but maybe get injured.

          1. Yes. Fighting can be a very serious risk for an animal. One bad injury and that can be that. Hominin use of missile weapons in hunting was a big deal not least because it greatly reduces this risk.

    2. Is it possible the raccoon was responding to your stepping outside, and the cat just had an instinct to run after it once it started moving? My raccoons take off as soon as the front door opens, but that’s mostly because that means I’m charging out, broom in hand, chasing them away from the suet (and seed) feeders. Which I do bring in at night, of course, but the brazen little bandits no longer wait till dark.

  7. Not only were North American raccoons imported to Japan and Europe, Japanese (East Asian) raccoon dogs (“tanuki” in Japanese – not raccoons, but a basal canid) were imported to Europe as well. See the Wikipedia article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raccoon_dog, which says the Russians brought them in as fur animals, including into the Baltic states, and they may now be found in several western European countries.

  8. A group of violent raccoons attacked people walking their dogs in San Fran last week.They had to get rabies shots so be careful out there.

  9. OK, that last bit (people in Germany regretting Göring and Hitler’s actions in the Second World War…When it comes to raccoons, of course, I should add) was unnecessary. Something of a Basil Fawlty line, identifying this as a British video.

  10. The coon-skin hat story, even if not true, makes sense. Hitler loved America. Here is a quote from Mein Kampf (Murphy translation, pages unnumbered):
    “In North America,” writes Adolf Hitler, “where the population is prevalently Teutonic, and where those elements intermingled with the inferior race only to a very small degree, we have a quality of mankind and a civilization which are different from those of Central and South America. In these latter countries the immigrants–who mainly belonged to the Latin races–mated with the aborigines, sometimes to a very large extent indeed. In this case we have a clear and decisive example of the effect produced by the mixture of races. But in North America the Teutonic element, which has kept its racial stock pure and did not mix it with any other racial stock, has come to dominate the American Continent and will remain master of it as long as that element does not fall a victim to the habit of adulterating its blood.” This is a “coon-skin hat” view frequent in comments on the Internet.

  11. I’ve read that when Davy Crockett was in Washington DC while serving as a Congressman, he attended a play featuring an actor portraying Crockett — wearing a coonskin cap, which, per the story, Crockett had never himself worn previously. Apparently he did take to wearing it afterwards. While he was still alive and long after he died, Almanacs featuring him were popular, most being outlandishly fictional, including an account of him going to the moon. Seems the historic Crockett morphed in the hands of fabulists into a modern Herakles or a precursor to Buck Rogers and Superman even after the real person lost an election and got himself killed in Texas, more likely after surrendering than in the heat of battle surrounded by dozens of dead Mexicans.

    1. Sounds like the makings of a religion. If only he’d returned after “three” days.

  13. We have a house in Hessen in Germany where my wife’s family are from and I can confirm that racoons are conspicuously abundant there. The clip shows one hunting in the stream running past our property:

        1. Yes, a Bushnell trailcam. Great for finding out what is passing through when you are not there to see for yourself!

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