Common raccoon dog

• 1. Introduction

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  The common raccoon dog, Nyctereutes procyonoides, wears a dark mask across its face, yet it is no relative of the raccoon. It is a heavy-set, fox-like canid native to East Asia, and it is also called the Chinese or Asian raccoon dog. Its closest relatives are the true foxes. The raccoon belongs to a different group, the musteloids. Among all the dogs, foxes and wolves of the family Canidae, only one other animal regularly climbs trees as this one does. That animal is the North American gray fox, which is neither a true fox nor a close cousin. One more species completes the genus Nyctereutes. It is the Japanese raccoon dog, the tanuki, found only in Japan. This documentary follows an animal that sleeps through winters other canids endure awake. It asks how a small East Asian omnivore came to be a regulated invader across Europe, where Scandinavians call it the marten-dog. And it asks why its name surfaced in the search for the origin of a pandemic.

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• 2. Built Like a Fox

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  A common raccoon dog measures between 45 and 71 cm in total length, with a long torso balanced on short legs. The tail is only 12 to 18 cm, less than a third of the animal's length. It hangs below the tarsal joints without touching the ground, and the ears are short, barely rising above the fur.

  In March, an individual weighs around 3 kg. By August and early September, males average 6.5 to 7 kg, and a few reach 9 to 10 kg. Specimens from Japanese and Russian studies run larger on average than those from Chinese studies.

  A researcher comparing skulls would be tempted to name a South American fox, especially the crab-eating fox. Genetic studies show the two are not closely related. The skull is small but sturdily built, with narrow zygomatic arches. In old animals the sagittal crest becomes particularly prominent.

  The teeth and gut tell the story of an omnivore. Canines and carnassials are small and weak, the molars are flat, and the intestines run 1.5 to 2.0 times longer than in other canids.

  The winter coat is long and thick, with dense underfur and coarse guard hairs measuring 120 mm. Its colour is a dirty earth-brown or brownish-grey, shot through with black guard hairs. A dark stripe runs down the back and broadens over the shoulders into a cross. The abdomen is yellowish-brown, the chest dark brown or blackish, and the cheeks carry long whiskery hairs. The summer coat is brighter and reddish straw-coloured. Rare white animals turn up in China, and yellow ones also occur.

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• 3. Everything on the Menu

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  In the Voronezh region, fire-bellied toads are a frequent meal for the common raccoon dog, while in Ukraine it more often takes European spadefoot toads. It can eat toads with toxic skin secretions by producing copious saliva to dilute the poison. Rodents matter too. Voles predominate in swampy country, and gerbils replace them on flatlands such as Astrakhan.

  The full menu is startlingly broad. It includes insects, birds, fish, reptiles, mollusks, crabs, sea urchins, eggs, carrion and human garbage. Plants add fruits, nuts, berries, bulbs, grapes, melons, pumpkins and tomatoes. In the Ussuri territory, large moles are the primary source of food. In the south, it eats young tortoises and their eggs.

  The diet follows the calendar. In late autumn and winter, it feeds mostly on rodents, carrion and feces. Spring brings fruit, insects and amphibians. Summer shifts toward nesting birds, fruits, grains and vegetables. Fish are rarely caught during the spawning season, but many are eaten during the spring thaw.

  Wolves are the main predators. In Tatarstan, wolf predation can account for more than half of raccoon dog deaths, and in northwestern Russia almost two-thirds. Red foxes kill pups and have been known to bite adults to death. Both foxes and European badgers compete for food and may kill a raccoon dog that enters their burrows. Golden eagles, white-tailed eagles, goshawks and eagle owls take them from the air, while Eurasian lynxes rarely attack.

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• 4. The Winter Sleep

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  By early winter, a common raccoon dog has raised its subcutaneous fat by 18-23% and its internal fat by 3-5%. Animals that fail to reach these levels usually do not survive the winter. This is the only canid known to hibernate, and during the sleep its metabolism drops by 25%.

  The sleep is not total everywhere. In Primorsky Krai and across the introduced range, the animals hibernate only during severe snowstorms. In December, activity falls once snow reaches a depth of 15-20 cm. The animal then stays within 150-200 m of its burrow.

  Daily activity rises again in February, when females become receptive and food is more available. That stirring coincides with the start of the mating season.

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• 5. Pairs and Pups

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  Mating begins as early as February in some places and as late as April in others, depending on location. Raccoon dogs are monogamous, and pairs usually form in autumn. Captive males, however, have mated with four or five females. Wild males fight over mates only briefly and not fatally. Males in rut may yelp and growl, though the species is otherwise usually silent.

  Copulation takes place at night or at dawn and lasts 6-9 minutes. Estrus lasts from a few hours to six days, and a female may mate up to five times. She enters estrus again after 20-24 days, even when pregnant. Gestation runs 61-70 days, and pups arrive in April and May. Litters typically hold 6-8 pups, although 15-16 have been born in exceptional cases. First-time mothers produce fewer pups than older ones.

  Fathers take an active part in raising the young. At birth, a pup weighs 60-110 g, and it is blind and covered in short, dense wool without guard hairs. The eyes open after 9-10 days. Guard hairs start to grow after 10 days, first on the hips and shoulders, and the teeth erupt after 14-16 days. After two weeks, the coat lightens, leaving black tones only around the eyes.

  Lactation lasts 45-60 days, although pups begin eating food brought to them at three weeks to one month. They reach full size at 4.5 months and leave their parents in late August or September. By October, the young animals pair up. Sexual maturity arrives at 8-10 months. Animals of 6-7 years have been found in the wild, while captive specimens have lived for 11 years.

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• 6. Released Across Europe

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  Between 1928 and 1958-10,000 raccoon dogs of the Ussuri subspecies were released in 76 districts, territories and republics of the Soviet Union. The aim was to improve their fur quality. This subspecies is larger than the nominate Chinese form, with denser, longer hair, and it ranges across the Siberian Ussuri and Amur territories, northeastern China and North Korea. Primorye in the Russian Far East was colonised first, using animals transplanted from islands in the Sea of Japan.

  The first releases were a lesson in biology. In 1928, pregnant females were released without males, and the introduction met with very limited success. Pairs released from 1929 until the 1960s produced the extensive European range seen today.

  By 1934, animals had gone to Altai, the Northern Caucasus, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan (then Kirgizia), Tatarstan, Kalinin (now Tver Oblast), Penza and Orenburg. The following year they reached Murmansk, Novosibirsk, Bashkortostan and Leningradsky District in Krasnodar Krai.

  Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, Trans-Baikaliya and Altai proved poor homes because of harsh winters and scarce food. The animals also fared badly in the mountains of the Caucasus and Central Asia, and in Moldova. They thrived in the Baltic states, the Tver, Novgorod, Pskov and Smolensk regions, central Russia around Moscow, the Chernozem belt, and the lower Volga. In Ukraine, the greatest numbers settled in Poltava, Kherson and Lugansk.

  In 1948-35 raccoon dogs were introduced into Latvia. By 1960, Latvia officially reported 4,210 of them hunted. Today the species is abundant throughout Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In Finland, 60,000-70,000 were hunted in 2000. The tally rose to 170,000 in 2009 and 164,000 in 2010. Reports reach as far as Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany, France, Switzerland, Romania and Serbia.

  Denmark set a goal of zero breeding by 2015. By 2018, the animal was fully established in Jutland, and later projects focused on keeping it off the Danish islands. Since 2019, the species has appeared on the European Union's list of Invasive Alien Species of Union concern. It cannot be imported, bred, transported, commercialized or intentionally released anywhere in the Union. In June 2021, a study commissioned by the United Kingdom's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs named it among 20 invasive species likely to spread to Britain.

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• 7. Pelts and Mislabels

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  In the 1880s, Russian trade in raccoon dog pelts was already well developed in the Primorye and Ussuri areas. From 1907 to 1910, the world trade ran to 260,000-300,000 pelts. An estimated 20,000, or 5-8%, came from Russia, although more recent figures suggest only 5,000-6,000. About 12,000 were caught in the 1930s.

  In the introduced range, licensed trade began in 1948-1950, and restrictions were lifted in 1953-1955. Catches then fluctuated between 30,000 and 70,000 from 1953 to 1961. In the latter year, about 10,000 came from the native Far East and 56,000 from the introduced range. Belarus supplied 6,500 and Ukraine 5,000. Releases in Kalinin changed the animals themselves. Fur grew denser by 11.3%, and black-brown pelts appeared in 8% of specimens, against 3% in the homeland.

  Captive breeding began in the Far East in 1928, and by 1934 there were 15 state farms. Raccoon dogs were the principal furbearers on early collective farms, especially in Ukraine. The practice faded by the 1940s, because they needed almost the same food as the more valuable silver foxes. An investigation by three animal protection groups in 2004 and part of 2005 asserts that about 1.5 million are raised for fur in China. The species makes up 11% of all animals hunted in Japan, and 20% of domestically produced fur in Russia.

  On clothing, the fur is sold as murmansky or tanuki fur, as Asiatic raccoon in the United States, and as Finn raccoon in Northern Europe. Silkiness sets the price, because erect guard hairs need silky fur. Small silky pelts beat large coarse ones. Because the fur tends to felt and mat, the pelts are used almost exclusively for trimmings. Japanese pelts are the most valued, with those from Amur and Heilongjiang close behind. Korean and southern Chinese pelts are valued least.

  The fur has also turned up where shoppers expected something else. On the 22nd of December 2006, MSNBC reported that Macy's had pulled two styles of Sean John hooded jackets advertised as faux fur. An investigation had found they were made from raccoon dog. On the 24th of April 2008, the Humane Society of the United States filed a false-advertising complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission against at least 20 retailers. It said 70% of the fur garments it tested were raccoon dog, mislabeled as faux fur, coyote, rabbit or other animals.

  Lord & Taylor announced a ban on selling raccoon dog fur in December 2009. On the 19th of March 2013, Neiman Marcus, DrJays.com and Eminent (Revolve Clothing) settled with the Federal Trade Commission, with no financial penalty unless they mislabel fur again. On the 19th of September 2014, the Humane Society announced that Kohl's had sold raccoon dog fur as faux fur.

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• 8. A Carrier of Diseases

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  On Soviet state animal farms, captive raccoon dogs were recorded carrying paratyphoid, anthrax and tuberculosis. In the wild, rabies has been found in animals from the lower Volga, Voronezh and Lithuania. Canine distemper occurs in the northern Caucasus, and massive outbreaks of piroplasmosis struck Ukraine and Tartary. Their introduction to Europe is thought to have brought infected ticks that carried the Asian tick-borne meningoencephalitis virus.

  The parasite list is long. Raccoon dogs carry 32 different worms, including eight trematode species, 17 nematodes and seven cestodes, among them Echinococcus. Six flea species and several ticks live on them. Mange can infect them, but it does not threaten their populations as it does those of foxes.

  In May 2003, a virus similar to SARS-CoV was isolated from Himalayan palm civets, a raccoon dog and humans working in a live-animal market in Guangdong, China. Raccoon dogs were first believed to be natural reservoirs. Genetic analysis has since persuaded most experts that bats are the natural hosts, and that raccoon dogs were probably only transient accidental hosts.

  German virologist Christian Drosten holds that the raccoon dog is the most likely intermediate host for transmission of SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 to humans, because the animals are bred for fur in China. The Huanan live animal market was an early locus of COVID-19 transmission. It offered over a thousand raccoon dogs for sale, alongside about nine thousand other animals.

  Samples collected there in early 2020 showed high levels of SARS-CoV-2 and raccoon dog genetic material, often in the same samples. The strongest signal came from a stall called Stall 29, which kept a cage of raccoon dogs above a cage of poultry. Chinese authorities contested the stall's existence. Yet Australian virologist Edward C. Holmes had photographed it in 2014, and a local resident filmed it in December 2019 and posted the video on Weibo.

  The samples were swabs of surfaces, not animals, so they do not prove that the raccoon dog was the missing intermediate host. The market closed on the 1st of January 2020, and the animals were removed before public-health authorities from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention arrived. The Chinese government denied until June 2021 that live animals were traded at the market.

  In February 2022, Chinese researchers posted a preprint concluding that humans had probably brought the virus in, but the raw data was not released. Later, genetic sequences from some market swabs appeared in an international database. Florence Débarre of the French National Center for Scientific Research found them in March and alerted others. When an international team tried to contact the uploaders, it got no reply, and the sequences were removed. The team analysed the downloaded sequences without Chinese collaboration.

  George Gao, former head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told Science that the raw data had nothing new. The World Health Organization's director-general said the data should have been shared three years earlier. Maria Van Kerkhove, the organization's COVID-19 technical lead, called for further data to be made public immediately.

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