Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumThe cute creature Sweden wants to wipe out
Source: BBC
The cute creature Sweden wants to wipe out
By Keith Moore
BBC News, Sweden
7 May 2016 Magazine
They look cute and cuddly and are sometimes kept as pets - but raccoon dogs are a menace, threatening wildlife across Europe. Sweden is so worried about their impact that it has trained a team to hunt and kill the animals, with the unwitting help of creatures made to betray their mates.
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The animal they are looking for is a raccoon dog, a fox-like creature native to East Asia that has a similar face to a raccoon but is a member of the canine family.
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Per-Arne Ahlen who leads Sweden's project to eradicate raccoon dogs, is with them too. He says the animals were first released in the European parts of the former Soviet Union by biologists as a source of fur.
"Economic success 80 years ago, today an ecological disaster," he says.
An ecological disaster, he explains, because raccoon dogs feed on amphibians and ground-nesting birds in wetland areas.
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Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36228601
yourpaljoey
(2,166 posts)Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)Cute and cuddly, they may be, but they need to go.
MH1
(17,600 posts)from the pic at the link.
But then, I'm a cat person.
Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)But they still need to go.
Warpy
(111,339 posts)so it will be about as successful as coyote eradication out west has been. Unless they develop a market for their fur for hats and coats to make rapid culling profitable, it's just not going to work. Only competition from other predators keeps the population of coyotes manageable, meaning wolf reintroduction here. A similar program might work there.
You shoot, bludgeon or poison coyotes, they just step up breeding and produce more. It's likely to be the same with raccoon dogs.
Depending on their dispositions, which I know little about, they might make appealing pets. They're the only canines known to hibernate, making them cheaper to keep during the winter months.
NickB79
(19,265 posts)Prime coyote hunting time here in Minnesota is the winter; the coyotes are constantly moving in search of food. They're more apt to come in close to a hunter's imitation of an injured rabbit scream when they're hungry and burning calories in -30F weather. I imagine it would be similar in Sweden.
Akicita
(1,196 posts)sue4e3
(731 posts)GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)They do terrible damage to the environment wherever they go, and are notoriously hard to eradicate.