KANAGAWA, Jul 04 (News On Japan) –
In Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture, a household of geese swimming peacefully at nightfall drew the eye of 5 raccoons rising from a canal and close by brush, elevating issues amongst onlookers a few attainable assault—although specialists later defined the raccoons had been doubtless extra curious than predatory.
“I was on edge,” mentioned the one that filmed the scene. “I kept wondering if the ducks were going to be eaten. It really looked like the raccoons were about to wash them.”
The duck household stored their distance, clearly cautious of the raccoons. Meanwhile, extra raccoons appeared. “Five of them came out,” the observer recalled. “They were like adorable stuffed animals, just rolling around. But I had a feeling their mother saw the ducks as dinner.”
Despite their cuddly look, raccoons are opportunistic feeders. But do they really eat geese?
“Yes, they do,” mentioned Punk Machida, director of the Center for Animal Behavior and Evolution. “But ducks are much faster, so they rarely get caught. Most of the time, raccoons are more curious than hungry. They’re just watching or playing.”
The subsequent day, the observer returned to the identical spot to examine on the geese’ destiny.
“They were safe. All accounted for, right where I saw them before.”
But if a raccoon had caught one, wouldn’t it have tried to scrub it—as their Japanese title, araiguma (“washing bear”), suggests?
“They don’t wash prey,” Machida defined. “In the wild, they almost never wash anything at all.”
Source: FNN