We can and should domesticate raccoons | Hacker News Reader

We can and should domesticate raccoons

oliviali.me

81 pointsmu-on77 comments

This is a "modest proposal" for sure. No legitimate thrust toward domestication would cherry pick such an esoteric example as "threading wires in automobile manufacturing facilities".

Take the (very real) fox domestication as a counterexample -- the topline takeaway is about how cute and cuddly they became. A smart and cuddly pet would be a believable pitch, but a helpful, even productive "human assistant" is far less so.

With that said, there are raccoon breeders out there (according to Google), so this proposal might be 25-50 years too early, eventually ending up like chinchillas or other small, exotic mammals.

It's absolutely 1000% satire, and yet I can see someone like Elon loving this idea:

>Labor: Their manual dexterity could be utilized in commercial labor contexts. In the early 20th century, an enterprising businessman even trained raccoons to perform chimney sweeps (Washington Post, 1906).

Bruh let's just let animals live in their natural environment without subjecting them to the torment-nexus that would be the raccoon-factory

Where animals have been domesticated and trained to do economically productive tasks, we've stopped the practice under the guise of preventing animal cruelty. using elephants or monkeys to do work evokes strong emotions in a ways that making humans doing the same job doesn't, so we've decided treating people that way is okay but not animals.

> Where animals have been domesticated and trained to do economically productive tasks, we've stopped the practice under the guise of preventing animal cruelty.

Mostly, we've stopped the practice by replacing it by more efficient, non-animal technology. There's probably a few cases where animal cruelty laws put the final nail in the coffin of practices that were rendered marginal by technological progress, but animal cruelty laws certainly are not the principal means by which use of animals as productive capital has been eliminated. It was tractors, not animal cruelty laws, that mostly stopped animals from being the used to plow fields, etc.

Nearly every racoon in North America is a carrier of roundworms. Their eggs are nearly impossible to kill, and if you ingest them, they hatch in your intestines and begin migrating through the rest of your body, resulting in severe and sometimes fatal neurological damage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baylisascaris

This is horrifying — I’ll be keeping further away from raccoons now.

I think you might have intended: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baylisascaris_procyonis

Note the "procyonis", ie raccoon roundworm. The procyonis version is indeed terrible, easily among the worst parasites a human could encounter.

Whether, as one comment suggested, every raccoon is positive, is debatable. I sure hope not, and would definitely expect cohabitating or proximal wildlife to exhibit symptoms, which has been observed, notably in squirrels, but not as frequently as one would expect if it were half as pervasive as most or 'every'.

But the risk is severe where present, necessitating the destruction of tools that make contact with feces. This worm is quite comfortable in both formaldehyde and subzero temperatures for months or years, remaining infectious. Extremely adhesive and generally not to be fucked with.

Edit: expect racoons to start harboring angiostrongyloids now, especially in Florida. Cuban tree frogs and snails certainly being on their menu, as well as being primary vectors. This worm has similar appetite for flesh, favoring the brain too, but is much smaller and less dramatic than baylis. Regardless, expect parasites to be an increasing problem.

Just going off of this one thing the worm can't survive is high temperatures and spice. I find raccoon meat goes particularly well with east asian cuisine, a cuisine which is far more open minded regarding nontraditional meat sources. My raccoon ovary drunken noodle is to die for, and packs a lot of heat! No parasite survives the wok!

The efficacy of administering advice to the clinically insane remains unknown to me.

However, you could marinate this shit in resiniferatoxin, bring it to a boil and leave it sitting in the desert sun for a year and it would remain infectious. Don't consume it, or more importantly, do not handle it.

Most wild animals have worms. Dogs would have worms if it weren't for periodic dewormer treatments for instance.

Why does this disqualify racoons from being domesticated?

Small parasitic worms are beginning to defeat humanity’s ability to control them.

To use your example, dogs and hookworms. https://todaysveterinarypractice.com/parasitology/drug-resis...

While this, and of course antibiotic tolerance in bacteria is a concern, it doesn't validate that Raccoons should be shied away from domestication. All it would mean is, if it comes to this, killing all cats and dogs.

(Because, releasing billions of cats and dogs would leave them starving to death)

Ive been fixated on the domesticated raccoon idea since I was a child and the disease reservoir problem is what really killed the fantasy for me.

Roundworms and they’re also a reservoir for rabies. It would be impossible to prevent the domesticated raccoons from interacting with local wild raccoons, so there really isnt anything that can improve the situation.

Its worth noting about 60% of infectious diseases are zoonotic, and every additional domestic species increases the routes existing viruses can take to evolve into infecting humans. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8808746/

> so there really isnt anything that can improve the situation.

They would get periodic rabies vaccines like every other domesticated animal?

The difference is that other domestic animals do not have wild counterparts with rabies that live in our backyards, constantly trying to socialize and mate with (infect) them.

There is hope though, the feds have been working to eliminate rabies in raccoons for a couple decades now.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240618204646/https://www.natio...

Is the efficacy of the rabies vaccine low?

I hear there’s a vaccine for rabies.

Someone should have told Meredith that before she got hit by a car

> Ive been fixated on the domesticated raccoon idea since I was a child

When I was about 12, I spent a summer volunteering at an Audubon Society program. Among my other responsibilities was caring for a litter of four orphaned raccoon babies (kits).

They were just like kittens or puppies. Adorable, sweet, friendly, funny, amazing. They'd climb on you, ride on your shoulder, loved to run and play. My favorite part was their hands/feet, which were always surprisingly cool to the touch.

I desperately wanted to take one, or all four, home with me at the end of the summer.

In retrospect, I'm not sure if the Audubon Society adults had a plan, per se -- the kits were found orphaned and brought in by someone. But the stated intention was to reintroduce them to the wild at the end of the summer, when they were old enough. I'm not sure whether that happened, and not at all sure it would have been successful, but these are the harsh understandings of adulthood.

(PS: I do not have, nor have I ever had, roundworms. I do not doubt the commentariat-wisdom here, but FWIW these kits were apparently clean.)

...

We also had a great horned owl who had been at the facility for a few years, due to a permanent wing injury. He generally preferred to be left alone (and that was respected), but he greatly enjoyed being fed mealworms from (a gloved) hand.

> I desperately wanted to take one, or all four, home with me at the end of the summer.

Had you read about pet raccoon attacks your mind would have been changed. They're definitely not suitable pets even though the kits are very charismatic. (I'd classify them in the same bucket as people who try to keep chimpanzees as pets... That works out tragically for all parties involved too.)

> Had you read about pet raccoon attacks your mind would have been changed

You might greatly overestimate the rationality of my preteen mind!

My parents, though, were not preteens. So my desires would surely have been overruled regardless.

I draw no conclusions regarding the wisdom of the Audubon Society staff.

Wouldn’t this be an argument for domestication? They can easily be treated if they’re pets. If they’re carriers it’s far better for them to be treated than wandering around outside your house shitting wherever they want.

I was going to joke we shouldn't domesticate creatures with thumbs, only to TIL raccoons don't have thumbs, but 5 dexterous toes, and probably can't shoot a firearm.

https://old.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/q5o9a5/c...

    The pet industry is projected to grow from $320 billion to nearly $500 billion by 2030 (Bloomberg Intelligence, 2023). Domesticated raccoons could carve out a significant niche in this market, potentially rivaling the popularity of dogs.

BRB, filling out my YC fall batch application...

Easy now. This is a good joke. It's all pretty funny. In fact, the whole oliviali.me site is pretty funny. We've got fusion in an apartment in NYC, Martian number sensibility, some microbial voodoo, etc. But, the effort, the immense effort to put this together is impressive - just look at the bibliographies and reference. Well done!

Eh, not so impressive. The text reads like LLM output, so low effort. References (the ones that I checked) appear to be real links, so there's that effort.

But, it's so bloody plausible on a superficial level. Somebody went to a bit of effort to make sure that this nonsense got into the world, and onto HN. Well played, I say. I honestly believe that someone I know will tell me within 3 months that the AEC is training raccoons to eliminate nuclear fusion's waste using some fantastic microbial electrolysis. They'll swear it's true.

> But, it's so bloody plausible on a superficial level

No, it isn't. It's just that you are easily plaused.

Idk, maybe my LLM detention isn’t good enough, but this doesn’t read like LLM writing to me. The jokes are just-subtle enough to land, and the points are unexpected-yet-slightly-convincing. From LLM’s I often get info that’s overly obvious, or just wrong. I could believe an LLM was used for editing / flushing out an initial draft, but that really doesn’t bother me.

Would be very interested to hear from the author whether it is LLM writing or not.

> The jokes are just-subtle enough to land

"Jokes" ? So now people are being trained to write like LLMS? Joy.

Hi I'm the author of this article. Yes I wrote this from scratch. I actually read two books on this topic + many papers to do research for this article over a period of many months.

I got Claude to rephrase certain sections that I thought didn't flow properly but majority of it is my writing. Yes I wrote those jokes.

Awesome, thanks for the reply!

Idk what I should say about the potential of enslaving animals for their labor. I don't even know what I should think about breeding cute pets and fucking up their gene pool for entertainment. Having said I have watched a netflix documentary about service dogs recently and it's pretty inspiring.

First time I looked an article and the inclusion of AI art has made me start to feel like the article itself is written using AI. Not saying that's the case, but it put me off reading it.

No mention in the article of the hygiene related aspect of the plan.

Can racoon be trained to pee / defecate outside ?

What do they smell like ?

Sure, these issues can likely be bred out of the current animal, but still.

I'd assume they'd be similar to ferrets (they're both weasels) and be litter box trainable, maybe.

raccoons are not in the weasel family I don't think, closer to bears if I recall

but I have to run so no citation

Raccoons are actually closer to weasels and ferrets than to bears. Procyonidae, the family that includes raccoons, is a member of the superfamily Musteloidea, which also includes weasels and ferrets. Bears are members of another superfamily, Ursoidea.

Here's the family tree (scroll down for the diagram):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musteloidea

> In Europe, the raccoon has been included on the list of Invasive Alien Species of Union Concern since 2016.[4] This implies that this species cannot be imported, bred, transported, commercialized, or intentionally released into the environment in the whole of the European Union.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raccoon

Knew a couple who adopted a young raccoon. One day "dad" remarked "It's like having a 2-year-old that never grows up." That raccoon tested every lock, drawer, closure and tool in the house (all the time).

I stepped outside once to find a mother raccoon with two young. One immediately chewed on my right toe; then the other bit my left toe. I was glad I had taken the time to put on my track shoes before venturing outside.

Someone's been watching too many Marvel movies.

I kept waiting for the “and opinionated, bipolar armed guards” bit to drop.

I collect silver age comic books, and this reminds me of several ads I read peddling "Pet Raccoons." I love it! https://www.reddit.com/r/comicbookcollecting/comments/16uwxh...

oh, and organized crime can't wait to domesticate these masked bandits

This is very obviously a GPT-authored nonsense article. The author is very much into GPT [1], and this article makes very little sense.

[1] https://x.com/oliviali_/status/1612928271376650240

oh no, my humorous entertainment reading had a machine involved in creating it so I refuse to find it entertaining.

This is hacker news, not Reddit

PS: The domain www.particleacceleratorferrets.com is currently available as of my posting this.

I'm not necessarily saying we shouldn't domesticate raccoons, but we have to be really careful about what animals are allowed to pilot submarines. It's a serious issue!

I don't think humans will ever domesticate another animal. The amount of culling required is just too horrifying.

I don't think there will be any new[1] dog breeds for the same reason.

1. New meaning actual new breed, not just new mixes.

I was on board with this until it mentioned raccoons can open pill jars. I'm imagining someone's pet racoon getting hooked on their Ritalin prescription and actually yeah, let's do this.

Willam Osman may disagree: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O9E8xRazTc

If the author sees this: was this written by an LLM?

I discussed in a thread already, but my guess is it’s not (fully) written by an LLM. The jokes are just-subtle enough to land, and the points are unexpected-yet-slightly-convincing. From LLMs I tend get info that’s overly obvious, or just wrong. I could believe an LLM was used for editing / flushing out an initial draft. Would love to know the true answer.

I want one. Where do I sign?

Love raccoons but am also reminded of Rascal cartoons in Japan:

How a Kids’ Cartoon Created a Real-Life Invasive Army (2017)

https://nautil.us/how-a-kids-cartoon-created-a-real_life-inv...

tl;dr Pet raccoons were popular in Japan because of a popular cartoon and then at the end of the series everyone started releasing their pets into the wild and it caused them to overpopulate and do tons of damage to the ancient temples etc!

Pretty sure a raccoon wrote this.

Hm. Would raccoons want to be domesticated, or would they see it as a form of enslavement to humans?

(But I wonder if AI wrote it...)

Article is LLM waffle. Illustration likewise.

I get that vibe, too, on the article. A little too: "Summarize this article and use it to write a supporting argument for this premise"

Yup. It feels like a precocious 12-year-old's class presentation for an assignment. Which I guess is about where llm is at these days.

My analysis it that it is a plot by a company that makes "child proofing" gadgets. People are having fewer children, so sales of child-proofing gadgets are falling. People are keeping dogs and cats as pets instead, but neither dogs nor cats have the dexterity to make child-proofing gadgets a must-have pet accessory. Pet Raccoons could save the child-proofing gadget industry, with only a minor pivot to tougher, gnaw resistant gadgets.

... and sign language Gorillas that can teach young Gorillas to use sign language

... and really big ostriches to populate Jurassic park

We need larger lemmings. Many.

And spoken language (toki pona or such) to various birds.

How do I invest?

Raccoons are pests. They are not cute and are a nuisance.

I’ll agree they are pests. They are cute, especially the little ones. I grew up in the woods and almost let one inside because I thought it was our cat (I wasn’t fully paying attention). Like mini bears.

Raccoons are an incredible example of nature adapting to our built environment. They are adorable, and fascinating (and complex).

humans are pests too, depending on the view point

Same with Jedi

That is your opinion.

Nah, pet owners are bad at pet maintenance and we will be inundated by raccoon poop everywhere that the owners were "going to pick up on our way back". Besides, the relationship people have with animals is idiotic. In San Francisco, they wanted kids to stop playing in Golden Gate Park because a coyote bit a child. Fortunately, saner minds prevailed and the animal was destroyed.

“Going to pick it up on the way back” has nothing to do with the pet species and only to do with a bad owner, let’s also not forget even human waste has a tendency to be left on the sidewalk in SF..

Other than rabies (which I assume domesticated vet visits solves), I’ve never once heard of raccoons being violent or any reason to be scared of them

> Other than rabies

And, as others have commented upthread, roundworm, which, unlike rabies, can't be reasonably managed.

I guess you don't meet that many raccoons. They're vicious bastards. And before anyone calls me out on this, the street belongs to me too.

All omnivores are vicious. It's kind of an evolutionary necessity.

We've all been sleeping on Raccoon AI. There is a Raccoon AI gap and we need serious and immediate legislation to address this.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com