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 couple of potential assault—although specialists later defined the raccoons had been probably extra curious than predatory.
“I used to be on edge,” mentioned the one that filmed the scene. “I stored questioning if the geese had been going to be eaten. It actually appeared just like the raccoons had been about to scrub them.”
The duck household stored their distance, clearly cautious of the raccoons. In the meantime, extra raccoons appeared. “5 of them got here out,” the observer recalled. “They had been like lovely stuffed animals, simply rolling round. However I had a sense their mom noticed the geese as dinner.”
Regardless of their cuddly look, raccoons are opportunistic feeders. However do they really eat geese?
“Sure, they do,” mentioned Punk Machida, director of the Middle for Animal Conduct and Evolution. “However geese are a lot sooner, so that they hardly ever get caught. More often than not, raccoons are extra curious than hungry. They’re simply watching or enjoying.”
The following day, the observer returned to the identical spot to examine on the geese’ destiny.
“They had been secure. All accounted for, proper the place I noticed them earlier than.”
But when a raccoon had caught one, would it not have tried to scrub it—as their Japanese identify, araiguma (“washing bear”), suggests?
“They don’t wash prey,” Machida defined. “Within the wild, they nearly by no means wash something in any respect.”
Supply: FNN
