Fang Ye finished placing the food tray and then saw the barrage of comments. He stroked his chin and said, "Someone is asking if this is a begging behavior. Begging behavior refers to the animal in the outdoor exhibition area not moving but approaching the edge of the exhibition area and waiting for visitors to feed it.
In this case, the visitors won't be able to see its natural behavior, and feeding could also be detrimental to its health, hence we must refuse to feed them.
Seeing the animal keeper coming over with food and reaching out for it isn't really considered begging behavior—it's just like when your mom has cooked a meal and is calling you to eat.
When raccoons eat, they hold their food with both paws, which indeed looks quite similar to begging.
This behavior can easily stimulate visitors' desire to feed them, as you can see from how fat they've become.
So, in our raccoon exhibition area, we use glass curtain walls to physically minimize the possibility of feeding."
With the confusion cleared up, another netizen asked, "Director, why doesn't this raccoon eat? It just keeps rubbing its food."
"Because they love cleanliness! The reason they're called raccoons is that they have a habit of washing their food in water before eating. Now that there isn't any water, they can only dry-clean."
"Is that really so?"
Chapter Find:
Fang Ye laughed and said, "You're half right. The origin of the name raccoon does indeed correlate with what this netizen said—they really do like the act of 'washing.' In English, a raccoon is called a raccoon, which comes from the Native American language and means 'to scratch with the hands.'
However, raccoons perform the washing action not for the sake of cleaning.
Their most important sense is touch, especially in their forepaws, which are covered with a multitude of tactile receptors and nerve fibers, giving them high sensitivity to detect and assess the size, weight, texture, and temperature of their food.
A thin layer of keratin protects the outside of their paws; when soaked in water, this layer softens, increasing their tactile sensitivity. They use this process to select food, discarding the parts they don't need.
So, you might see raccoons washing not only food but also sticks or rocks—whatever random objects they can find; they're actually using this action to learn about the object's properties. Furthermore, raccoons can't distinguish between clean and dirty water. They often wash their food in muddy water, which only gets dirtier as they wash it."
Therefore, in the United States, there are specialized pest control companies that come to catch and dispose of raccoons from homes.
In the 1970s, raccoons were only kept in some zoos in Japan. However, after Japan produced and aired an anime about a raccoon, "Rascal the Raccoon," everyone thought it was so cute, prompting a raccoon craze, with a large number of northern raccoons being imported into Japan as pets.
But as they were kept, the Japanese quickly realized that these creatures weren't so easy to take care of—fast, wild, and destructive to furniture. Especially when in heat, they can become very aggressive and attack people, so a large number of raccoons were abandoned in the mountains after a while.
Raccoons are very adaptable and, without natural predators, the rapidly breeding raccoon population brought serious problems to Japan.
This included damaging over 80% of Japan's ancient temples and other historic buildings, stealing grain crops, pushing out native animals from their habitat, entering residential areas to eat goldfish and cultivated fruits, and even on Hokkaido island, where raccoons cruelly bit off dairy cows' teats, causing serious losses to local farmers.
The raccoon problem in Japan still hasn't been resolved yet."
Netizens initially found it quite interesting, but after learning about the severe consequences caused by raccoons, they no longer saw the raccoons' adorable behavior of washing food as simply cute.
"Wow, are they really that terrible?"
"These guys are like little devils! Cute but causing such great harm, it seems you can't just keep them carelessly."
"I'm starting to dislike raccoons a bit."
"What's wrong with raccoons? Invading cities, isn't it because we humans have encroached on their natural habitats?"
"The raccoon disaster in Japan is entirely their own fault, breeding them because they're cute and then abandoning them."
Seeing the netizens argue, Fang Ye mused, "Actually, the relationship between humans and animals is not a simple matter of one retreating and the other advancing. It's like a seesaw, where it's not good if either side is too heavy. We need to find a balance and look for ways to coexist harmoniously.
Alright, I have something to do later, so I'm going to end the broadcast for today."
"Okay, goodbye Director!"