‘The raccoon in Flanders’ report
Raccoons are predators native to North America. In Europe, they are an exotic species. Ever since the start of the Marternetwerk in 1998, we received reports of raccoons in Flanders. This was always based on the assumption that they were the harbingers of a steady population development from (mainly) Germany, where raccoons were already well established.
Yet it has since become clear that the sightings from the 1980s, 1990s and the first years after 2000 were probably almost all first-generation animals that escaped or were transported by humans. Nowhere could spontaneous establishment, with reproduction in the wild, be demonstrated.
In recent years, this has changed considerably. From the French and German border regions, the Walloon region south of the Sambre-Meuse line has seamlessly ‘filled up’ with raccoons, so to speak. This wave of colonisation gradually spread further across Flanders and Hainaut. Based on all observations, we can assume that population development throughout Flanders is already at an advanced stage. Thus, we note that raccoons have already reproduced in the wild in every province by now.
The situation in this report can be taken as a reference state with regard to future developments. The question of whether and, if so, how raccoons should be systematically controlled (for longer or again) in Western Europe is the subject of current international discussions. Apart from that, intervention in specific situations may be desirable to locally and temporarily help mitigate or avoid an acute conservation problem.
Image above: raccoon (photo Rollin Verlinde - Vildaphoto)