A wild raccoon enters German zoo, and gets to stay!
I read this story in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Sunday. By the way – the Philadelphia Inquirer added a new section to their Sunday newspaper – called the Upside. It’s all uplifting – positive stories and it’s great. They cover all the other news too obviously – but in the Upside section we get only the good stuff. It’s a nice break.
So this story is about a wild raccoon in Germany. The European Union has a law that considers raccoons an invasive species. So because they are considered to be a possible threat to other plants and animals, by law – a captured wild raccoon can’t legally be released back into the wild.
So this is where our fun raccoon story begins. A wild raccoon wandered into the enclosure at the Heidelberg Zoo in Germany, and the zoo then had no other choice but to keep him. They couldn’t legally release him back into the wild, and since he fit right in with the other seven raccoons in the raccoon enclosure, he now gets to stay and he gets free room and board and food for life. He just happened to stumble into just the right spot.
They named him Fred.
I’ll bet that’s the best raccoon story you’ll read all day. 🙂
~ Kristen
