In the past decade, raccoons have been found plastered throughout the pages of the German media in a story arc akin to the rise of a new celebrity. From one raccoon drunkenly passing out at a Christmas market to another sneaking in and short-circuiting a Berlin power plant to the young Waschbär that snuck aboard a BVG bus at Tempelhofer Damm last year, their exploits have fomented both popular fascination and concern in the German capital.
If you find a raccoon in your attic, you best say Hallo to your new Mitbewohner.
While to many Germans the creatures are little more than a cute, furry addition to the ecological landscape, others see something else entirely: raccoons are known to be a general nuisance sometimes causing cities fortunes-worth of damage. In North America, where they are native, they’ve been known to damage property, tearing up attics and roofs, and spread disease.
And since raccoons eat just about everything, including small birds and reptiles, the concern is that they could harm other local species. With an alleged increase in raccoon activity in the city, some Berliners have proposed trying to control the population, but scientists question whether that’s necessary. Others argue that concern about an expanding raccoon population is a moot point, and that any raccoon running rampant should be seen as a problem.
With the estimated 1,000 furry critters in Berlin – and the roughly 30,000 that live in Brandenburg – already enjoying the run of the place, it begs the question: should we be worried about a raccoon occupation of Berlin? Or can we keep being amused by whatever caper or scrape they go viral for next?
The destruction myth
Raccoons aren’t actually native to Germany – they were introduced in the 1930s in then-Nazi Germany, some held in captivity for their fur and others deliberately released for hunting. Since then, and with allegedly no local predators, the raccoons have been busy making themselves at home.
In 2016, the EU added them to the “invasive alien species” list, a designation that means humans may not intentionally catch or knowingly release raccoons into the wild, something that inadvertently created stronger population protections. This, on top of a Berlin-wide hunting ban from February to September, means that if you find a raccoon in your attic, you best say Hallo to your new Mitbewohner – legally, you can’t take it back to the forest. Those are tenancy rights that Berlin’s short-term subletters can only dream of.
With this invasive status, raccoons face extra suspicion. In Brandenburg, “predator-devoured” European pond turtles have been found next to raccoon tracks. While it seems likely raccoons are the guilty party, the paw-print evidence alone is not enough to hold raccoons responsible for observed population decline.
While raccoons are “omnivorous generalists”, meaning they can reach their nutritional needs by eating almost anything, biologist Frank-Uwe Michler sums up raccoons’ eating proclivities as being closely tied to proximity and ease: “The raccoon is basically lazy, and eats what it can get with least effort.” While in theory almost everything is on the menu, some scientists argue that due to the aforementioned laziness, raccoons will always go for what is already most plentiful in an environment, and therefore rarely harm at-risk species.
Additionally, in Müritz-Nationalpark, one of the biggest raccoon research projects in Germany – Projekt Waschbär – discovered that while raccoons eat and kill endangered species, this is done in such small quantities that it poses little threat to endangered populations in the forest. The project, underway since 2006, aims to fill the relative data void around the impact of raccoon populations on German wildlife.
Disease is another common scarlet letter; in North America, raccoons are an established vector of rabies and parasitic roundworm, both of which are harmful to humans. However, according to a 2023 study, very few cases of disease transmission from raccoons to humans have been recorded in Europe. On top of this, Germany has been rabies-free since 2008. So while there are many reasons to avail yourself of the German medical system, it’s unlikely that “rabid raccoon bite” will be one of them.
The population myth
There’s also debate about whether the population size of raccoons poses any real threat. Estimates are typically calculated by tallying the number killed by hunting each year, and much of the current data based on these hunting figures suggests that the population of raccoons is growing at an exponential rate in Germany – but to Berlin wildlife expert and biologist Carolin Weh, that is “absolute bullshit”. “The population is growing, yes, and it is expanding, yes, but not that fast,” she says. According to Weh, the hunt count is a flawed model. One could speculate that the categorisation of raccoons as ‘invasive’ may serve to motivate individual hunters.
Weh also points out that raccoon populations in some areas in Germany have already reached their “carrying capacity”, a natural maximum threshold that a population reaches when resources like food and shelter are finite. So a situation where raccoons procreate until they’ve filled every attic and Keller in the city is simply not realistic. As Weh suggests, “We just have to be smarter.” It’s more about raccoon-proofing infrastructure than it is worrying about the animals swarming the city.
There is, however, a compelling reason to reduce raccoon population size that doesn’t involve theories about raccoons eating turtles or giving you rabies. While disagreements continue as to whether raccoons should truly be designated as invasive or not, the current legislation makes it incredibly difficult for those who find lone baby raccoons – called kits – or sick or injured raccoons in Berlin. Once in human hands, raccoons can no longer be released back into the wild, meaning that bringing a sick or injured raccoon to your local vet may unintentionally condemn them to a life in captivity.
It’s a problem that raccoon welfare advocate and Steglitz-based veterinarian Dr. Mathilde Laininger knows all too well. When two sick raccoons, Fritzi and Paul, were brought to her practice, she realised her only real avenue was to apply for a permit to care for the pair. She now works with a network of people helping find space, resources and permits to foster other raccoons – and educates the public, as Fritzi is now something of a local Instagram celebrity with almost 42,000 followers. But fostering isn’t a sustainable solution – Laininger was recently refused a permit for keeping more than five raccoons due to EU regulations. In November, when her current permit runs out, she will have no choice but to cease operations, greatly impeding the current raccoon welfare infrastructure in Berlin.
A promising Berlin-based project was recently proposed by the non-profit Hauptsache Waschbär, an association founded by Laininger that wants to ethically trap raccoons, sterilise them and then release them back into the wild. The sterilisation project would aim to “investigate castration/sterilisation as an ethically justifiable, ecological and sustainable population control measure”. The project was poised to be potential compromise, placating those with population concerns while ensuring a greater focus on raccoon welfare.
However, after almost two years of back-and-forth between relevant Berlin Senate departments and the group, their request for a permit for live traps was rejected by the Berlin Forestry and Hunting department in July. CDU Senator Ute Bonde, in comments to taz, said the rejection was largely due to “partially missing and inadequate documentation” as well as a “lack of supervision by a scientifically-recognised research institution”. Hauptsache Waschbär now plans to reapply for the permits next year.
And for those who think hunting might be a better method of population management, the verdict is already in: it’s completely ineffective. In fact, according to Michler, it could have the opposite effect due to a biological instinct where raccoons will increase reproduction rates if the population experiences a decline. According to Weh, raccoons “use latrines – the same spots to defecate – for communication”. So when less activity is going on at the local Waschbär WC, raccoons know it’s time to get busy.
The silver-striped lining
In an interview with The Guardian, one Toronto-based animal control expert suggested raccoons could be compared to people: “Some are calm. Some are curious. And some are just vicious assholes.” But the main takeaway is that the idea of a Berlin “plague of beer-swigging raccoons trashing people’s homes and eating their pets”, as one Daily Mail headline once put it, is an alarmist prediction.
This is not to say a raccoon has never sampled a beer or eaten a pet, but that the idea that this is a population of animals programmed with destructive behaviour is misleading. While naturally drawn to big cities for their ample food and shelter, stopping raccoons from establishing territorial strongholds in Berlin is largely a case of raccoon-proofing your Keller.
Right now, the proposed sterilisation project stands as a promising tool for population control and raccoon welfare – but bureaucracy still reigns supreme, in limbo until the next round of permit applications. Until then, it’s probably safe to enjoy the fuzzy freeloaders a little.
