Raccoons destroy German vineyards [Nazi Raccoons!]

Decanter ^ | 10/26/05 | Oliver Styles

[LibWhacker]

Thousands of marauding racoons, descendents of animals released by Hermann Goering, have overrun vineyards in central Germany.

The nocturnal mammals descended on vineyards in the Brandenburg region, west of Berlin, ruining the harvest. Ripening grapes are a favourite snack of the stripy-tailed rodent.

'Raccoons wiped out almost the entire harvest in a matter of days,' winemaker Werner Kothe told Deutsche Presse-Agentur. 'We have 540 vines and they have been stripped bare by these animals.'

The raccoon problem is well known in the area and although some residents take them on as pets, many consider the imported species pests.

Local authorities have now authorised a raccoon cull. Last year, a similar cull killed 3,471. There are an estimated 1m racoons in central Germany.

The animals were introduced by Nazi air force chief Hermann Goering in 1934 to 'enrich' Germany's fauna. With no natural predators their numbers have exploded.

The main winegrowing regions in west Germany – including the Mosel, Rheingau, Saar and Pfalz areas – are believed to be unaffected.

[Kiss Me Hardy]

Baby diapers baited with toxic poo would trim their numbers. I've yet to find the raccoon that can resist making off with a tasty used diaper from an overturned trash can. I just wish they wouldn't leave what's left of their meal wrapper hanging in the tree over my front gate!

[Tijeras_Slim]

Shamelessly swiped from our FRiend martin.

[Brilliant]

"grapes are a favourite snack of the stripy-tailed rodent."





Raccoons are not rodents. Maybe they've got this animal confused with some other animal. Maybe it's a giant communist rat, descended from animals released by Joseph Stalin.

[Straight8]

Why did the chicken cross the road?
To show the raccoon that it can be done.

[Brilliant]

Baby diapers baited with toxic poo would trim their numbers.

Yeah, but who's going to volunteer to fit them with the diapers?

[LibWhacker]

LOLOL... How did I ever miss that one?

[TheSpottedOwl]

One of my friends in high school adopted a raccoon. Pretty cool, but don't piss him off. Her dad used to feed the skunks that were tipping over the trash cans. Yes, we're weird : )

I wouldn't be amused if it was my vineyard being ravaged, though.

[rogue yam]

Maybe it's a giant communist rat, descended from animals released by Joseph Stalin.

I thought they just voted him out.

[Fierce Allegiance]

Schweet!

[LibWhacker]

ROTFLOL

Good catch on the rodent thing!

[Antioch]

Our city is overrun with raccoons-We developed a control program here by dropping, by plane, thousands of packets filled with honey mixed with estrogen. It was a bi-weekly airborne assault of all the ravines of surrounding suburbs. The idea is that it disrupts racoons breeding cycles and results in fewer offspring every summer.

[wyattearp]

Baby diapers baited with toxic poo would trim their numbers.

You don't need to bait them. Baby diapers are toxic by nature.

[LibWhacker]

Yeah, to me it always seemed like they were pretty dangerous animals to have as pets... Though I love 'em in principle!

Wow, feeding skunks... Even I wouldn't do that, lol! :-)

[LibWhacker]

Ahhhh... I think they're doing that with coyotes, too, aren't they?... Birth control for pests/dangerous animals... Good idea.

[PAR35]

I wonder if Goering was a drug addict in 1934 or did he start abusing morphine later.

It was before that. He was shot during the Munich Beer Hall Putsch in November 1923 . He even went through re-hab in Sweden in about 1925. (He received a painful wound in the groin).

[Calvin Locke]

When I first got out of college, I rented a house with a couple of other guys. This humungous raccoon ate a hole
in the roof, and drove us nuts scampering across the floor in the middle of the night.

The landlord finally fixed the roof after a rain water started pouring in one day.

[decimon]

...animals released by Hermann Goering...

"As Odin is my witness, I thought racoons could fly."

[GSlob]

Well - does it work?

[raccoonradio]

This has been posted before, I think, and it also gets posted from time to time on "furry" newsgroups. (A furry is a fan of anthromorphic animal cartoons. I am one...Typical furry newsgroup post title: "Unicorns Against Bush". I followed up with "Raccoons For Bush". Whenever this story pops up on a furry newsgroup, the comparisons of conservatives and Republicans to Nazis often follows, at which point I remind them that Nazi is short for National SOCIALIST, actually.

German word for raccoon is "waschbar" which I think literally means "washing bear" (washes food)

[Antioch]

Goering wasn't the first to try this idea. In the late 1800’s Eugene Scheiffelin set out to introduce to America all of the birds depicted in Shakespeare’s writings. He released sixty starlings in Central Park in March of 1890 and forty more the following year. By 1970, that small group of founders grew to half a billion birds invading the continental US and Canada all the way to the arctic circle. Starlings are clever and extremely adaptable to urbanized environments, forcing native species like bluebirds, woodpeckers, flickers and martins out of their natural habitats.