Raccoon menace spreads

Friday, 2 December 2022 06:30

More and more raccoons are spreading across the country, especially in canton Aargau. They're devastating forests, farmers’ fields and gardens.

There are calls for hunters to target the animal specifically in an attempt to bring the numbers down.

Raccoons are an invasive species and have few natural predators in Europe. They were first brought over from North America to breed for fur.

Hunting expert Reto Fischer says they can have a major negative impact on the ecosystem and they are excellent hunters themselves.

Across Europe, raccoons are considered vermin and so it’s legal to kill them and illegal to release them into the wild.

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