I thought that this number seemed not so big, but that my perception might be skewed due to the chosen scale and an inability to imagine an process how big the depicted areas are, so I looked up the development of raccoon population in Germany (I read the german Wikipedia).
So, first of all, one of the major relevant incidents was pure greed. A poultry breeder released a couple of raccoons into the wild so that they would populate the area and pelt prices could go down because expensive imports would become unnecessary. I hate humans, especially the rich ones.
Second, according to a publication from 2011, at that time the population of raccoons in Germany size was estimated to be around half a million individuals and that each year, 300k animals would have to be killed if the population sized was to be reduced with a lasting effect. Although, that might not be enough, as research shows, after a 2007 distemper epidemic killed 80% of the female raccoon population in Müritz National Park, the year after more raccoons were counted than before the outbreak.
Third, we need the wolf back. As shown by the example before, raccoon populations are extremely resilient and also in north american raccoon populations hunting shows to be not only not a major cause of death, it was insignificant. In Germany, the lack of natural predators like the wolf is benefitting the expansion of some invasive species like raccoons, american minks or raccoon dogs (who are not raccoons) and also has an influence of growing populations of native species into overpopulations. Hunting and roadkill incidents alone shows to be not effective enough (at least in areas that are not destroyed habitats due to human expansion).
I thought that this number seemed not so big, but that my perception might be skewed due to the chosen scale and an inability to imagine an process how big the depicted areas are, so I looked up the development of raccoon population in Germany (I read the german Wikipedia).
So, first of all, one of the major relevant incidents was pure greed. A poultry breeder released a couple of raccoons into the wild so that they would populate the area and pelt prices could go down because expensive imports would become unnecessary. I hate humans, especially the rich ones.
Second, according to a publication from 2011, at that time the population of raccoons in Germany size was estimated to be around half a million individuals and that each year, 300k animals would have to be killed if the population sized was to be reduced with a lasting effect. Although, that might not be enough, as research shows, after a 2007 distemper epidemic killed 80% of the female raccoon population in Müritz National Park, the year after more raccoons were counted than before the outbreak.
Third, we need the wolf back. As shown by the example before, raccoon populations are extremely resilient and also in north american raccoon populations hunting shows to be not only not a major cause of death, it was insignificant. In Germany, the lack of natural predators like the wolf is benefitting the expansion of some invasive species like raccoons, american minks or raccoon dogs (who are not raccoons) and also has an influence of growing populations of native species into overpopulations. Hunting and roadkill incidents alone shows to be not effective enough (at least in areas that are not destroyed habitats due to human expansion).