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> one single racoon released in a small Spanish Island by idiots almost wiped the entire colony of an endangered marine bird in two years That's crazy. Do you

> one single racoon released in a small Spanish Island by idiots almost wiped the entire colony of an endangered marine bird in two years That's crazy. Do you have a link to that?

pvaldes 4y ago
Let me refresh my memory Checked. I stand corrected. It was a few months, not two years and the seabird was not an endangered species globally (but can be locally). It happened in the National park of Timanfaya almost twenty years ago. At the end of June-2003, a trail of depredated corpses of Scopoli's shearwaters started to appear. The area is dry and the invisible predator left no traces and almost no faeces to examine. The National Park staff suspected a ferret as main candidate. Dogs, cats or even badgers were also in the list, some camera traps were set and eventually show a racoon. Until caught at the end of the summer, the final "bodycount" was 100 shearwaters killed (plus the orphaned chicks unable to survive without the parents). This just by one single racoon in a single summer. The animal was tame, not afraid of people and was clearly a released pet. If it hadn't happened in a national park no one would have bothered to hunt it. I only found a link in Spanish, you can use google translate if you are curious about the details. https://www.abc.es/espana/canarias/abci-capturado-mapache-causado-muerte-cien-pardelas-timanfaya-200310150300-214072_noticia.html https://www.abc.es/espana/canarias/abci-capturado-mapache-ca...
- xbar 4y ago
  Similar but different, invasive rats in Galapagos have been particularly destructive in the past 50 years. https://galapagosconservation.org.uk/invasive-black-rats-in-galapagos/ https://galapagosconservation.org.uk/invasive-black-rats-in-...
- cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  "Wild" North American raccoons here in their native range are also completely unafraid of people. Or even dogs. At least in urban areas. They basically "know" that they can't really be messed with, because it's not typically legal to shoot them, they have nasty teeth and claws, and they're ridiculously smart.
  - alyandon 4y ago
    You aren't joking about them being unafraid of people. I was sitting out on my back deck one evening here in $RELATIVELY_BIG_CITY and had two adolescent racoons approach me and start engaging in playful behavior. One of them even ran up and snagged the slipper off my foot before I protested and it dropped it and ran away.
navbaker 4y ago
I found this in the first google result ( https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969719341683?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896971... ), but my first pass at the article didn't mention anything about a marine bird it threatened.
- pvaldes 4y ago
  Different cases and different places. Mallorca Island is located south of France. Lanzarote Island is located to the west of the Sahara. The Mediterranean Islands had pygmy elephants, endemic goats, bunny like rodents with short ears and forests with many trees that were extinct long time ago. All fauna now is similar to the continent, and seabirds know since long time ago that there are small carnivores roaming; and that some places are safe to nest and other not. Canary islands have their own biodiversity area and remained much more isolated with no native wild carnivore predators.
clsec 4y ago
They also have a huge racoon problem in Japan where they were introduced. https://www.dw.com/en/raccoons-wreak-havoc-with-agriculture-and-native-species-in-japan/a-45630198 https://www.dw.com/en/raccoons-wreak-havoc-with-agriculture-... edit: link
- pvaldes 4y ago
  Can't fall to mention that the "racoon" shown in the photo is a Japanese native mammal :-)
tomc1985 4y ago
A couple of housecats multiplied and wiped out a bunch of native species on California's San Clemente island a while back. A friend of mine was a contractor doing work for the Navy on that island (it's USG property) and told me stories about how some of the other folks stationed there would grab a shotgun and Jeep and go cat huntin'

> one single racoon released in a small Spanish Island by idiots almost wiped the entire colony of an endangered marine bird in two years That's crazy. Do you have a link to that?

pvaldes 4y ago

Let me refresh my memory Checked. I stand corrected. It was a few months, not two years and the seabird was not an endangered species globally (but can be locally). It happened in the National park of Timanfaya almost twenty years ago. At the end of June-2003, a trail of depredated corpses of Scopoli's shearwaters started to appear. The area is dry and the invisible predator left no traces and almost no faeces to examine. The National Park staff suspected a ferret as main candidate. Dogs, cats or even badgers were also in the list, some camera traps were set and eventually show a racoon. Until caught at the end of the summer, the final "bodycount" was 100 shearwaters killed (plus the orphaned chicks unable to survive without the parents). This just by one single racoon in a single summer. The animal was tame, not afraid of people and was clearly a released pet. If it hadn't happened in a national park no one would have bothered to hunt it. I only found a link in Spanish, you can use google translate if you are curious about the details. https://www.abc.es/espana/canarias/abci-capturado-mapache-causado-muerte-cien-pardelas-timanfaya-200310150300-214072_noticia.html https://www.abc.es/espana/canarias/abci-capturado-mapache-ca...

xbar 4y ago
Similar but different, invasive rats in Galapagos have been particularly destructive in the past 50 years. https://galapagosconservation.org.uk/invasive-black-rats-in-galapagos/ https://galapagosconservation.org.uk/invasive-black-rats-in-...
cmrdporcupine 4y ago
"Wild" North American raccoons here in their native range are also completely unafraid of people. Or even dogs. At least in urban areas. They basically "know" that they can't really be messed with, because it's not typically legal to shoot them, they have nasty teeth and claws, and they're ridiculously smart.
- alyandon 4y ago
  You aren't joking about them being unafraid of people. I was sitting out on my back deck one evening here in $RELATIVELY_BIG_CITY and had two adolescent racoons approach me and start engaging in playful behavior. One of them even ran up and snagged the slipper off my foot before I protested and it dropped it and ran away.

navbaker 4y ago

I found this in the first google result ( https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969719341683?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896971... ), but my first pass at the article didn't mention anything about a marine bird it threatened.

pvaldes 4y ago
Different cases and different places. Mallorca Island is located south of France. Lanzarote Island is located to the west of the Sahara. The Mediterranean Islands had pygmy elephants, endemic goats, bunny like rodents with short ears and forests with many trees that were extinct long time ago. All fauna now is similar to the continent, and seabirds know since long time ago that there are small carnivores roaming; and that some places are safe to nest and other not. Canary islands have their own biodiversity area and remained much more isolated with no native wild carnivore predators.

clsec 4y ago

They also have a huge racoon problem in Japan where they were introduced. https://www.dw.com/en/raccoons-wreak-havoc-with-agriculture-and-native-species-in-japan/a-45630198 https://www.dw.com/en/raccoons-wreak-havoc-with-agriculture-... edit: link

pvaldes 4y ago
Can't fall to mention that the "racoon" shown in the photo is a Japanese native mammal :-)

tomc1985 4y ago

A couple of housecats multiplied and wiped out a bunch of native species on California's San Clemente island a while back. A friend of mine was a contractor doing work for the Navy on that island (it's USG property) and told me stories about how some of the other folks stationed there would grab a shotgun and Jeep and go cat huntin'