Nazi Raccoons

Well not all news has to be serious stuff of world importance.
Where I live raccoons are just a part of life and usually of no consequence.

I usually see them as road kill, not a pretty sight, none the less I find this story of Nazi Raccoons hilarious.

From Nazi Past, a Proliferating Pest

KASSEL, Germany -- In 1934, top Nazi party official Hermann Goering received a seemingly mundane request from the Reich Forestry Service. A fur farm near here was seeking permission to release a batch of exotic bushy-tailed critters into the wild to "enrich the local fauna" and give bored hunters something new to shoot at.

Goering approved the request and unwittingly uncorked an ecological disaster that is still spreading across Europe. The imported North American species, Procyon lotor, or the common raccoon, quickly took a liking to the forests of central Germany. Encountering no natural predators -- and with hunters increasingly called away by World War II -- the woodland creatures fruitfully multiplied and have stymied all attempts to prevent them from overtaking the Continent.

FULL STORY