Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/02/28/white-people-are-crazy.html
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“here is this massively cute thing you should never do. Enjoy!”
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Gentle reminder: Wildlife belong in the wild, not at home. Please do not do this at home.
Yeah, seriously. Because for one thing, there’s no such thing as a domesticated trash panda. Being kept as a pet doesn’t magically make it “domesticated.” It’s just a wild animal comfortable with humans.
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YES!
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The comfortable with humans part is more than I can say for myself. The wild animal bit is still an aspiration I’m working toward.
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I never thought I would feel sorry for a racoon.
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We had a “pet” racoon when we were kids. He just kind of came to live with us when he was very young, possibly abandoned or orphaned. His name was Willard, and he was very friendly – paws that felt like velvet, very soft. But, as it does, one day nature called, and he had to answer. Willard was cool.
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The Japanese have an invasive-raccoon problem now thanks to a childrens’ book about a pet raccoon that was converted to an cartoon series there.
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I was going to say that the West also has its famous children’s book about a pet racoon – Sterling North’s Rascal, but reading your link, it turns out that this is the source of the animated series there. It is odd how various early 20th century English-language works got popular in Japan – they are really into Anne of Green Gables too, and while visiting Prince Edward Island I saw many Japanese tourists there to see the various Anne-related sites.
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That’s the plot of Rascal, but I suppose it is truth in fiction. Young mammals, wild or domestic, bond with their caregivers (generally their mother), but when mature wild animals don’t want to stick around.
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I wouldn’t be surprised if they become domesticated in the far-off distant future.
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This is horrible on so many levels. Horrible to that animal, horrible for spreading the idea that raccoons can be pets, horrible for spreading misinformation about what “domestication” means, horrible for the continued idea that nature works like Disney says it does, soon to be horrible for those people when the raccoon has decided it has had enough (and they always do), horrible for the people who have to fix that house after what that animal is going to do to it…it goes on and on.
I’m definitely not disappointed in BoingBoing (never that), but I might have made different editorial choices on this one.
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Maybe with CRISPR? Domesticatability requires a genetic component that very few species have, and I’m not sure we know exactly what all the elements are yet. Maybe an actual scientist can correct me here.
We need to at least dispel this Disneyesque notion that any animal can be “domesticated” just by being really nice to it from a young age. That’s not how any of that works
Ahem. Sorry @AnthonyI - just venting here, not directing anything at you.
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I know a Japanese “Anne of Green Gables” scholar, and I asked her why the fascination, and she believes it may be that many of the people orphaned after WWII identified with Anne and felt that her spunkiness and independence was aspirational.
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Try getting your hands on “The architect of sleep” by Stephen Boyett, about an alternate Earth where humans never evolved, but raccoons became the “humans” of their version of Earth. It needs a sequel, but he never wrote one.
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Yes, raccoons CAN be pets. This is not a new thing and it’s legal in many (although not nearly all) states. Nor do they always want to “return to the wild”; I’ve had the pleasure of scritching an elderly, friendly raccoon gent on his person’s porch, for example.
Is it a good idea? Often not! Is it done far too often? Yes. But sometimes circumstances say otherwise (generally, an orphaned animal). Overgeneralizations are overgeneral. Remember, folks, the species we consider “domesticated” did not start that way.
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He wrote one, but the publisher came back and said “dude this is 3x as long as the first one, can you maybe cut out some of these huge, huge info dumps about raccoon history” and he said “no” and they went back and forth for a while.
And then people just kept asking him about it and asking him about it and now he just wishes he’d never wrote it.
Or at least that’s what I remember about the page he used to have up on his site on the subject.
edit: ah, here’s the history, and the later update to his faq where he says “I’m never gonna try to publish the thing because furries”, thank you for the archive links Wikifur.
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Over time I think natural selection will favor friendly racoons. They get free food from the humans if they’re nice.
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Any veterinarians or vet techs who can weigh in on how bad an idea this really is?
Rabies is a thing for racoons.
And how about spaying/neutering?
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Thanks for the info, and the publisher was wrong; I for one would have been fascinated about the raccoon history!
