The cute creature Sweden wants to wipe out

[Eugene]

Source: BBC

The cute creature Sweden wants to wipe out

By Keith Moore
BBC News, Sweden
7 May 2016 Magazine

They look cute and cuddly and are sometimes kept as pets - but raccoon dogs are a menace, threatening wildlife across Europe. Sweden is so worried about their impact that it has trained a team to hunt and kill the animals, with the unwitting help of creatures made to betray their mates.

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The animal they are looking for is a raccoon dog, a fox-like creature native to East Asia that has a similar face to a raccoon but is a member of the canine family.

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Per-Arne Ahlen who leads Sweden's project to eradicate raccoon dogs, is with them too. He says the animals were first released in the European parts of the former Soviet Union by biologists as a source of fur.

"Economic success 80 years ago, today an ecological disaster," he says.

An ecological disaster, he explains, because raccoon dogs feed on amphibians and ground-nesting birds in wetland areas.

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Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36228601

[yourpaljoey]

1. they ARE sweet

[Agnosticsherbet]

2. Invasive species can act as a cancer in an ecosystem.

Cute and cuddly, they may be, but they need to go.

[MH1]

5. Yes. I wouldn't even call them "cute and cuddly"

from the pic at the link.

But then, I'm a cat person.

[Agnosticsherbet]

6. If the below image qualifies, so do they.

But they still need to go.

[Warpy]

3. They're fast and prolific breeders

so it will be about as successful as coyote eradication out west has been. Unless they develop a market for their fur for hats and coats to make rapid culling profitable, it's just not going to work. Only competition from other predators keeps the population of coyotes manageable, meaning wolf reintroduction here. A similar program might work there.

You shoot, bludgeon or poison coyotes, they just step up breeding and produce more. It's likely to be the same with raccoon dogs.

Depending on their dispositions, which I know little about, they might make appealing pets. They're the only canines known to hibernate, making them cheaper to keep during the winter months.

[NickB79]

8. Hibernating in winter means they'll be harder to kill via shooting or poisoning as well

Prime coyote hunting time here in Minnesota is the winter; the coyotes are constantly moving in search of food. They're more apt to come in close to a hunter's imitation of an injured rabbit scream when they're hungry and burning calories in -30F weather. I imagine it would be similar in Sweden.

[Akicita]

4. New Orleans and So. La. have a very similar problem with nutria rats.

[sue4e3]

7. I think humans are more of a problem than raccoon dogs

[GliderGuider]

9. You got that right. The world's worst invasive species.

They do terrible damage to the environment wherever they go, and are notoriously hard to eradicate.