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Playing with raccoons in German zoo

Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 3:00 pm
by Novil Ariandis
http://www.wyit.de/stuff/waldzoo/waldzoo.wmv (2 min 4 s, 12,9 MByte)

This video is from my visit of the Waldzoo Offenbach in Germany on the 26. May 2007 where I got the chance to get in touch with the hand raised raccoons there. They were very tame and we could pet, play with and hand feed them.

The snout of one of the raccoons had to be removed after an accident when play fighting as a kit with his brothers which were all brought to the zoo after the death of their mother. But besides the somewhat crude look, he is doing well and has no problems regarding smelling. Because he was the one who came to me most often and liked to lay his sensitive paws in my hands, I chose him when it came to my decision to chose one of them for an adoption for one year.

The raccoons loved to grab at our cameras ruining all my attempts for a close up photo ;-). I think that they both liked the metallic glimmer and the interesting surface structure when they touched the cameras and went into the rills with their claws. You sometimes hear that you have to be careful when feeding raccoons by hand so that they don't bite you by accident. When dealing with wild ones this is certainly good advice, but those three were very aware what was the food and what was the hand that fed them. Raccoons look quite fierce on many photographies with their sharp teeth and claws, but although they liked to gnaw on my arm, I carried away not a single scratch.

If you have further questions regarding raccoons, you can ask them here. I have read almost all up to date books on raccoons except one which is already in my bookshelf.

Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 5:15 pm
by Llewthepoet
AWWW...SO CUTE!!! (Ahem) They are pretty big creatures! I would know this because I used to be fast food employee and our trashcan was near a wooded drainage area. So I would see lots of raccoons and stray cats eating leftover chicken and so forth. SOMETIMES THEY WOULD BE TRASHCAN AND WHEN YOU OPENED IT THEY WOULD COME RUNNING OUT! SCARY!!!

Nice Video! 8)

Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 1:10 am
by Zaaphod
Cool video, I like it! :D

Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 1:29 am
by Angstwolf
I thoroughly enjoyed the video as well. :D

Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 3:20 am
by Rooster
They are an animal that is lacking from the UK, and I'm sort of glad about that. Otherwise now, with the foxhunting ban, all the toffs would be charging across fields shouting "tally-ho!" and chasing them down with dogs before paiting the animal's BLOOD onto their child's head...

Fascist bastards...

Wow, I turned a topic about racoons in a german zoo into a rant about UK class-tensions.

Alan Foreman would be proud...you know, if he hadn't dissapeared up his own arse...I mean, what the hell happened to SSDD? I remember when it used to be funny...now it makes me want to kill myself, and don't even get me started on JACK...

I need a sit down and a pringle...

Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 3:54 am
by Angstwolf
I mean, what the hell happened to SSDD? I remember when it used to be funny...now it makes me want to kill myself, and don't even get me started on JACK...
Wait wait wait, was Jack ever funny?

EDIT: God, I'm freaking flooding this forum. More than usual, even. I'm glad I'm not studying for my Spanish test tomorrow or anything unimportant like that. :P

Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 4:32 am
by Tabris_The_17th
Awww, they're so cute! :wag:

Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 2:15 pm
by Tom Flapwell
I'd kiss them, but I don't know how they'd take it.

Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 4:02 pm
by Novil Ariandis
Well, at least the one with the missing snout took a nose rub pretty well :wag:. (That's not me, I made the picture.)

Image

Another raccoon inserted his tongue inside the nose of the third visitor which he felt rather uncomfortable about. :laugh:

But my arm was the most delicious to gnaw on (No, not a single scratch, I shit you not.):

Image

Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 4:38 pm
by hay
Mmmm, raccoon.

Very cute.

But a good thing that raccoon did not pierce the skin.