Bushy-tailed bandits ready to go native
Raccoons may look like cute, furry foragers, but their presence in Britain is a cause for concern, says Eifion Rees
Are you quite sure that a fox is responsible for knocking over your bins at night and scattering rubbish across your garden? I ask only because another wily scavenger is becoming increasingly at home in British gardens: the raccoon.
Sightings of these masked, bushy-tailed bandits are on the rise; one was photographed raiding a bird table in Ringwood, Hampshire, earlier this month. Two confirmed sightings were made in County Durham last year and in 2009 raccoons were spotted in Surrey, west Berkshire and Portsmouth. These individuals may just be isolated escapees, but the accumulation of incidents is starting to look like something more sinister.
The increase is probably due to the fact that many more raccoons are being kept as pets in Britain following a change to the law in 2007 which removed the need for a licence. As kittens, raccoons are playful and cuddly, but their temperaments can change when they reach sexual maturity (two years old for males, one for females). At this stage, they can become aggressive and difficult to manage, prompting inexperienced or poorly prepared owners to panic and dump them in the wild.
Just one mating pair could precipitate an invasive species explosion to rival that of grey squirrels and wild boar, according to Simon Baker, the author of a 1990 report about non-native mammals in Britain.
He predicted then that if wildlife legislation were not strengthened, we
would see new exotic species establish themselves in Britain, and raccoons and wild boar would “almost certainly be the first”. Baker was right about wild boar: Britain now has a feral population of almost 1,000. Will he soon to be proved right about raccoons, as well?
Perhaps because the wilds of Britain are not so different from the temperate environment of their native North America, raccoons adapt well to life on the run. “From an ecological point of view, I don’t think a breeding population of raccoons would have any trouble surviving in the wild in Britain,” confirms Charlie Wilson, wildlife management specialist for Natural England.
“They certainly have the potential to be damaging to our environment and wildlife by taking birds’ eggs and predating on native species. The few sightings we’ve had so far suggest that the few raccoons being found are escaped pets, however, and the fact that they tend to be kept as individuals has certainly helped. The danger would be if several escaped at one time.”
Natural England undertook a “horizon-scanning” exercise in 2009 to determine which non-native species posed the greatest threat to British wildlife. The raccoon was placed on the Alert List –“high-risk species either currently absent from the wild or present but contained in enclosed environments” – because of its success in proliferating on mainland Europe.
The blame for that – among other things – can be laid at the feet of Hermann Goering. In 1934, at the request of the Reich Forestry Service, he authorised a pair to be released into the German countryside both to “enrich local fauna” and for sport.
In the event, the hunted outlasted both the hunters and Hitler: with no natural predators, there are now 500,000 to a million raccoons in Germany, resulting in a decline in songbird numbers due to their fondness for eggs, and millions of pounds worth of damage to property. The animals have since spread to France, Eastern Europe and Russia.
Spring is when females litter, so keep an eye out for their black-and-white faces lurking around your bins – and don’t just blame foxes.
Interesting raccoon facts
Raccoons kept as pets in Austria and Germany must legally be housed in pairs to protect against loneliness.
The world’s heaviest raccoon suffered from an overactive thyroid. “Bandit” died in Pennsylvania in1994 weighing 75lb (34kg).
The name is derived from the Algonquian Indian word arakun, meaning “he scratches with his hand”.
Raccoons often dip their food in water before eating.
Raccoon bites can trigger a neurological disease in dogs.
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