Heiko de Groot

Raccoons: The New Europeans

Once raccoons were brought to Germany for their fur. Today many people wish them gone. There are approximately half a million raccoons living in Germany and they are spreading throughout Europe. It all started in the first half of the last century with fur farms. Since fur produced in captivity was of lesser quality than fur from the wild, it was decided to release two gestate pairs into the forest. They came upon ideal living conditions and multiplied busily. For a long time, there were no studies on how raccoons affect native species. Only in the last years have German biologists started to shed light on it with surprising and mainly comforting conclusions.