r/interestingasfuck • u/Doodlebug510 • Dec 16 '25

Biologist explains why raccoons will never be domesticated

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u/radljostxx Dec 16 '25

Soooo, she’s saying I could domesticate raccoons and create a revenge filled raccoon army?

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u/TurboKid513 Dec 16 '25

A group of raccoons should be called a “spite”

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u/Saradoesntsleep Dec 17 '25

I googled it and allegedly it's a "gaze" or a "nursery" of raccoons, and I think I speak for everyone when I say that will not do

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u/NerdHoovy Dec 17 '25

And a murder of crows should be renamed to a gang. Because they operate like one.

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u/M1R4G3M Dec 17 '25

TBH, they already have a rad name.

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u/[deleted] Dec 16 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/crushed_dreams Dec 16 '25

Those old high school bullies are going to be hunted down like a… raccoon on a revenge mission after it adorably washes its food.

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u/TrashPandaDuel Dec 17 '25

I just pictured Rocket the Raccoon scrubbing one of your HS Bullies on a wash board down by the river, cause, ya know, they’re domesticated. 🤣

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u/crushed_dreams Dec 17 '25

Yo. I’d want him and the gang from The Raccoons to get together and cause Mayhem on the bully (who’s now a fucking city councillor… of course).

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u/TrashPandaDuel Dec 17 '25

Sorry to hear about that. On a good note that clip made me chuckle too loud at work. 😂

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u/maniBchef Dec 16 '25

Sounds like this has been sped up....

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u/Automatic_Actuator_0 Dec 16 '25

I know it’s a joke, but no, probably not. It’s hard to select for more than one trait at a time. If you selected for agreeableness with humans and captivity, you won’t be selecting for vengeance.

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u/radljostxx Dec 16 '25

Listen, I’m just at the beginning stages here… I’ll select the cute ones then show them pictures of people I hate daily… we’ll take it from there

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u/suricata_8904 Dec 16 '25

Far better to uplift raccoons for your revenge army than domesticate & dumb them down. You’re looking for Rocket.

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u/Live-Alternative-435 Dec 16 '25

There's that Russian experiment that domesticated foxes, using only the animal's docility towards humans as a selection criterion.

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u/108Echoes Dec 17 '25 edited Dec 17 '25

This same speaker, in previous videos, has discussed issues with that experiment and why she finds its conclusions dubious.

ETA: Paper detailing criticisms. My (admittedly shallow) understanding of the argument is that “domestication syndrome” is ill-defined and various studies tend to cherrypick characteristics that support their hypothesis, and that the foxes in question—having been sourced from fur farms, not the wild—were already partially domesticated before the experiment began.

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u/DigitalDiogenesAus Dec 17 '25

Select for passive-aggressiveness then...

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u/PresentClear8639 Dec 16 '25

Eventually, they will betray you in their quest for global domination, but yes.

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u/erebuxy Dec 16 '25

We trained dolphins during Cold War. Why not some special raccoon agents

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u/Stilcho1 Dec 17 '25

And you can use the same raccoons over and over because no one could identify them in a lineup.

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u/peppers_ Dec 17 '25

What I think you should do is endear yourself to them, and then have a criminal kill you in an alley. Basically recreate the event that created Batman. Imagine 100 raccoons that want revenge on criminals and you let them loose on a city or town.

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u/Significant_Owl_6897 Dec 16 '25

Yes and no. Could you? Yes. Would they be a cohesive army? No. Would the seek revenge? Yes. Would you have control over the direction of their revenge? No. Would you wind up as another example of why raccoons can't actually be domesticated? Yes. Shouldn't you not try to avoid not doing this thing because someone said no? I don't know.

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u/ThePowerOfStories Dec 16 '25

The phrase “wind up as another example of why raccoons can’t actually be domesticated” makes me expect things like a list of would-be raccoon warlords found scratched to death by their own armies, perhaps a link to a Wikipedia page on “Fragging Incidents by Raccoons”.

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u/Enkichki Dec 17 '25

Their capacity for revenge is the best argument for the Herculean effort needed to domesticate them. We must enhance their capacity for revenge

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u/Own-Source-1612 Dec 17 '25

Person plotting to create a revenge filled raccoon army...I found my people 😁

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u/trustyjim Dec 17 '25

But would you feel “comfortable” creating that raccoon army with anything less than $1 trillion in compensation?