A kids' cartoon led to invasive raccoons in Japan | Hacker News Reader

A kids' cartoon led to invasive raccoons in Japan

nautil.us

52 pointsdnetesn42 comments

I like the different (evolving) related titles:

How a Kids’ Cartoon Created a Real-Life Invasive Army POSTED BY JASON G. GOLDMAN ON SEP 18, 2013 http://m.nautil.us/blog/how-a-kids-cartoon-created-an-real_l...

Rascal: The Raccoon That Ate Japan BY ERIC GRUNDHAUSER AUGUST 29, 2014 http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/rascal-the-raccoon-that...

RASCAL’S SECRET PLAN: THE RACCOON INVASION OF JAPAN NOVEMBER 21, 2014 • 2105 WORDS WRITTEN BY MATTHEW MACEWAN • ART BY AYA FRANCISCO https://www.tofugu.com/japan/raccoons-in-japan/

The Children’s Book That Caused Japan’s Raccoon Problem By Laura Clark SMITHSONIAN.COM MARCH 16, 2015 http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/childrens-book-behi...

An entire article on Japan, racoons, anime, and even a note on the native tanuki, yet not one mention of the excellent Ghibli anime, Pom Poko.

For some reason, this charming Miyazaki (edit - Takahata, not Miyazaki! thanks for the catch) work has not been widely marketed in the West, which is a shame as it is as enjoyable and fun as the more famous ones like Spirited Away or Porco Rosso.

What a shame. Everyone should know about these real-life transformers:

- Chameleons

- Foxes

- Racoons

I used to see a fox around my old house in Nagoya, but never when anyone else was around.

Then I started seeing a young girl walking a fox-like dog in the area, and she always seemed to be caught in the act when I came upon her, and again no one else was ever around.

I said hello to her once and she just walked right past as if she didn't see me, which is pretty odd behavior in Japan. I will go to my grave believing that she was a shapeshifter, even though I'm not usually in for such superstitious nonsense.

Pom Poko is a Ghibli movie, yes, but it was directed by Isao Takahata, not Miyazaki.

I can aunderstand why it's not been marketed as much; it's pretty long-winded and it deals with Japanese stories and folklore that are foreign to the general western audience.

> it deals with Japanese stories and folklore that are foreign to the general western audience.

That is also true of Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, My Neighbour Totoro... a lot of other Ghibli productions that did get lots of exposure.

I think the issue with that particular movie is that (IIRC) is a bit heavy on the ecological agenda, overall is not great (funny here and there though) and I don't think it was ever dubbed. The subtitles I've seen floating around are pretty terrible.

Someone should put together a Takahata retrospective with good subtitles.

Doesn't Pom Poko involve raccoons with magical testicles? That kind of storyline is basically unmarketable to children in the prude US!

The English dubs refer to them as 'magic raccoon pouches', and I never knew any better until I saw this thread :)

I always thought the issue was the constant use of shape-sifting testicles as a plot device. It'd be difficult to censor.

Not directed but "also featured early work by animation pioneer and Studio Ghibli cofounder Hayao Miyazaki" http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/rascal-the-raccoon-that...

I enjoy Ghiblis movies, and enjoyed Pom Poko, but I wouldn't put it in the same class as Spirited Away, maybe Porco Rosso (but I prefer Porco Rosso myself).

There's a Radiolab podcast about Guadeloupean raccoons, where they're considered almost sacred even though they're as pesky as in the US. I found the locals discussing their attitude to the incredulity of the Radiolab hosts quite amusing.

http://www.radiolab.org/story/stanger-paradise/

Oh, there's lots of places in the world that consider raccoons sacred. Just look at how my city reacted to the death of one: https://imgur.com/gallery/h9LRo

That's hilarious!

Very funny. I love when people come together in ways like this.

I think our equivalent in Australia would be the possum, often finding its way into your roof cavity, dying and stinking the place out. They make some ghastly growling noises at night (as do koalas).

"Raccoons have since proliferated in Japan, where they have no natural predators"

well to be honest, there really isn't predators for them here in Pennsylvania either. Owls 'may' grab a really young one, but honestly cars probably kill way more

Yeah I mean I assume something eats raccoons but by and large they seem to be a local Maxima in the food chain.

They pretty much outnumber humans in Toronto.

Coyotes eat racoons all the time out here in rural Michigan. They seem to prefer rabbits, or at least rabbits are louder: whenever I am out in the woods at night camping or just sitting around a campfire, I hear the death screams of a rabbit or three, indicating there are coyotes active.

There aren't so many bobcats around anymore to help out, but they'll eat them too. Down here in the lower peninsula, we don't have wolves anymore (and you can tell from the huge number of cars in body shop parking lots from deer collisions), but I assume they'd take a raccoon if they wanted to.

The problem, though, is that while the raccoons do fine around humans and even in cities, large predators like coyotes and bobcats don't. And if one does do well, they're exterminated (or, I suppose, sedated and moved out of the city humanely) like the wolves were.

I'm sure you have plenty of all these predators in the wilderness outside Toronto up around Algonquin, but in cities and developed areas there are few natural predators.

>>The problem, though, is that while the raccoons do fine around humans and even in cities, large predators like coyotes and bobcats don't.

http://coyotemap.com/

We're just to the left of center on that map and see coyotes regularly. But we're suburban. Of more interest to me are the coyotes that live in downtown Chicago.

They're not raccoons, they're canine called "raccoon dogs" because they look like raccoons.

But biologically speaking they have little in common with raccoons.

No, the article is talking about actual racoons, which were introduced to Japan in the 20th century, not the native tanuki.

The article specifically talks about NA raccoons imported from the US by the thousands as pets following Araiguma Rasukaru[0], not about the native Tanuki.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rascal_the_Raccoon

Cars may be enough to stabilize raccoon population. They are territorial. Young ones either replace an older one, or get pushed out of established territories and end up wandering the road (no-raccoons-land). So cars are serving as 'failed raccoon euthenasia'.

If the raccoon density is high enough that they are pushing out into new territory, the cars have failed to keep the population in check. They can easily reach 20 per square kilometer in areas with enough trash and other food sources, which is a very bad situation for an invasive species.

>They are territorial.

You're not kidding. When I bought my house it had sat empty for a couple of years and a family of raccoons had added it to their territory. Closing up vents helped, but once a year or so they'd return and try again. I'm just guessing but I think the mothers would still try to work the metal grating out of the vents when they were pregnant.

I didn't really want to kill them and frankly trapping them seemed like a lot of work, plus they had fleas and potentially carry rabies, not to mention possibly having a parasite in their feces. I didn't want to hurt them and I didn't really want to get near them. As with most anything else you can buy the solution on the internet: puma pee. A liberal sprinkling of the foul smelling stuff ran off me, my wife and the raccoons. We can't smell it any more but apparently the raccoons can because they haven't returned.

don't forget ticks w/ lime disease

Similar problem in reverse is the explosive growth of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallopia_japonica all over Europe's forests and gardens. The plant is nearly unkillable and thus extremely expensive to get rid of. Here in Switzerland, dirt contaminated with its roots is counted as a hazardous waste that you need to take extra precaution for transit and disposal.

Thankfully by now we've learned to be more careful with importing non-indigenous species.

I'm imagining the only good way for soil to recover from it is burning, and even that might not be enough. What a nuisance.

Using the soil as feedstock for a microbial bioreactor might also be "safe."

The eastern part of the US has a problem with asian bittersweet. It hybridizes with native bittersweet, and then kills all of the native trees.

It took me an entire weekend to dig up and remove it from my house when I bought it, and I still get new shoots every year.

Now is probably a good time to start eradicating them, since they're still relatively small in population. The risks are pretty high for an animal like this.

I hear they're also pretty good eating. Enough meat to make them worth butchering, and they apparently taste something like the dark meat off a chicken (quite greasy, but also excellent for frying).

Maybe a recipe book is the kind of public outreach required.

That's neat. Over the years I've heard multiple Japanese people refer to raccoons as "rascal" and I had no idea why.

From the trailer to the anime, I can see why kids would think racoons would be cute pets:

http://youtu.be/2YMH5ntJEZ0

Huh. TIL the music from Frogger was copied from the opening to an unrelated anime.

This must have been an expensive production. They even got native English speakers to sing part of the OP, which is rare even today.

Lots of examples like this, e.g. marbled crayfish started as aquarium pets and now they can be found in wild on 3 continents (even on Madagascar).

That's a lot like deer in the US after Bambi. They used to be a nuisance. Now we think they are cute. If you live in a place with enough of them you may start to realize they are a nuisance.

They are a nuisance because humans killed off all of their natural predators. We only have ourselves to thank for this.

I guessed this from the plot. I'd heard about this from a raccoon documentary on PBS.

TLDR: Japan's now full of raccoons because an anime (Araiguma Rasukaru) made them look like fun to keep as pets, until you have to let them go into the wild because they're getting too aggressive.

Sounds similar to pythons in the everglades

But Japan's not really full of raccoons. I've never seen a raccoon in ~4 years here and I've seen 30+ wild tanukis (up to 10 or so could have been the same ones). It also states in the article that Hokkaido has been killing off 2,000 raccoons per year because of the agricultural loss due to raccoons. With that being said I've only seen 2 wild raccoons in America in 25 years so maybe they're just much better at hiding than tanukis.

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