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Fight to save autism kids' favourite Flash the raccoon as EU ban hands him a death sentence

Ste11aeres said:
The map of "places with a climate like ours" had some small green spots in the USA in part of the raccoon range.

What specific elements of the UK climate do you think they would be unable to adapt to?
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I don't know, I have never seen a raccoon let alone know what they need or what they eat other than trash. Just wondering why they don't live in that green part as that's the closest there is. There must be some kind of factor there.
 
unsurewhattoname said:
I don't know, I have never seen a raccoon let alone know what they need or what they eat other than trash. Just wondering why they don't live in that green part as that's the closest there is. There must be some kind of factor there.
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Actually, the smaller map you showed of UK like climates had some small spots within the USA that were inside raccoon range.
The thing is, they live all across the USA. And the USA has a huge diversity of climates. There's the cold winters of the North, the sweltering heat of the South, the rain of the Northwest, the dryness of the Midwest and the far more extreme aridity of the Southwest. They live in climates more extreme in every respect than the climate of the UK. They are omnivores and will eat anything. Anything. They are highly intelligent and very very adaptable. They do well in both forests and cities.
They also are the primary North American carriers of rabies. Their feces holds dangerous parasites such as roundworms. So while a raccoon is unlikely to attack a human (unless trapped) they do pose dangers, of a sort.
 
Tennessee, Maryland, Indiana, and Arizona are all grey, and I can verify by personal experience that they are vastly different. The map shows, more than anything, that they most likely could adapt to a UK climate. I don't see any reason to say they couldn't except just to be contrarian.
 
unsurewhattoname said:
I don't know, I have never seen a raccoon let alone know what they need or what they eat other than trash. Just wondering why they don't live in that green part as that's the closest there is. There must be some kind of factor there.
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That's a great question, and the one that I was curious about when I understood your maps. But I think it isn't actually to do so much with climate, as the presence of larger numbers of large predatory animals which prevents the raccoons from proliferating in Canada. Here is a North American range map for grizzly bears, for example:

http://nrmsc.usgs.gov/research/CYEbeardna_detail

And for grey wolves:

http://www.endangered.org/cms/assets/uploads/2013/07/PlacesForWolves_VisionMAP1page.pdf

There are other species, but those are two of the more apparent examples.

These natural predators aren't present in the British Isles; foxes are the most noteworthy predatory animal in the UK, competitive with the raccoon in North America but not otherwise much threat to them. Populations of predatory animals were hunted out long ago, which means any introduced species which is aggressive (as raccoons are) would really thrive if it found a mate or means to breed. Which is why your earlier suggestion about neutering seems to be the most obvious and immediately practical solution. If they have concerns about threats to local wildlife if a raccoon escaped, maybe they should extend their threats to include housecats and even dogs as well. Those aren't native to the UK, either, and cats particularly have been widely cited as a major threat to passerine birds.
 
Good point about the wolves and bears. We also have badgers and birds of prey. Badgers are absolutely huge. Like the size of a big dog. Birds of prey can take down deer if they want. We may not have wolves and bears but we have other predators here the raccoon has never encountered. These can either hunt the raccoon or compete with it for food.

And there may be smaller spots, but those are not the same as the UK - true marine west coast climates are only found on the west coast. People have argued against it in the talk section about the Wikipedia page I found that map on: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Köppen_climate_classification

And is it contrarian to point out there must be some kind of factor causing the raccoons not to have migrated any further north along the west coast of north america? If they were as adaptable as you say they are, ancusmitis, they'd have no problem taking the entire North American continent. Except they haven't, so there's clearly something going on here. So you tell me why they haven't populated the part of Canada highlighted in green. Wasn't saying it was to do with climate, just that it's going to be the closest example because of that.
 
ancusmitis said:
I was referring to climate. I don't know what the problem is in your neck of the woods but it ain't the weather.
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So it's contrarian to try to find the reason is it? That part in green is the closest simulation there is and yet the raccoons aren't there. I'm wondering why because it may be the same reason as the UK, causing the raccoons to not do well for whatever reason. It could be anything. It could be habitat, food, if they are food, conditions. I don't know, but I want to. I get more deeply interested than any reasonable normal person when I see something I can't explain.
 
My point was that the raccoon's range in North America encompasses such enormously different climates that the fact that one area has slightly similar weather to the UK is probably irrelevant. As for habitats and predators, those aren't even on the map, so I would avoid drawing conclusions based on it. Sorry about contrarian, but that's just the way it struck me.
 
ancusmitis said:
slightly similar weather to the UK
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Identical climate. Not slightly similar weather. Climate is incredibly relevant as it influences the whole environment. Weather not so much, it's a short term thing.

And predators are on a map. See the wolf and bear ones that naturalist found.
 
As I said their range extends through many climates, several of which are extremely different. And looking back at your climate map, the same green-colored climate shows up in the highlands of southern Mexico, and the raccoons do fine down there. Why would they be in southern Mexico but not the west coast of Canada? Dunno. But the same climate shows up in both places, raccoons only in one of them. So there is something else going on.

As for bears and wolves, those aren't in the UK, so that's not going to control their population. And even if there weren't already good reason to think they could become invasive, is it really better to risk finding out the hard way?
 
See my other link, that dark green in Mexico is not marine west coast climate, it should have its own classification. It is absolutely not the same climate as others have pointed out.

And we have foxes, badgers, and birds of prey.

No it's not, but if they neutered it there'd be no problems.
 
unsurewhattoname said:
No it's not, but if they neutered it there'd be no problems.
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Some people may try to sneak animals in who are still "intact" and there's always human error to consider--the surgery might be done improperly. What more, if they aren't allowed to keep intact raccoons, then they can't breed them either, and that makes it hard to run a business selling raccoons to people. In the end there's not really much point in carving out that exception.
 
ancusmitis said:
Some people may try to sneak animals in who are still "intact" and there's always human error to consider--the surgery might be done improperly. What more, if they aren't allowed to keep intact raccoons, then they can't breed them either, and that makes it hard to run a business selling raccoons to people. In the end there's not really much point in carving out that exception.
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I'm not talking about them being kept as pets as a large scale or raccoon breeding business or anything like that, this is about this one raccoon and any more like that. Any more should be blocked entry. However if they neutered ones already in our country it'd fix the problem. What's the percentage for failures of neutering?
 
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