My hometown is Flekkefjord, a small sleepy town in the south of Norway. Recently a racoon was spoted up in the mountains nearby Flekkefjord. A beautiful animal, really, but it’s natural habitat is North-America. So what, you might ask?

First of all, I don’t hunt and I am not trigger happy at all. But when I first read about the racoon on national television, my first thought was “German battles ‘Nazi’ racoons“, a newsstory over at ANANOVA a year or two ago. This is the European “rabbit story”, and goes about like this: Herman Göring back in 1934 set out racoons on the German country side. He wanted to “enrich” the local wildlife! Today the German racoons are a threat to the agriculture and carriers of deceases. In the Kassel area experts have estimated it to be about a 100 racoons per square kilometre.

The latest is that the ‘Nazi’ racoons have reached as far north as Denmark.

Monday this week, my local newspaper could tell that hunters had managed to shoot the racoon. But rumours are that there are more racoons in the wild. Racoons are also forbidden kept as pets in Norway.