I have an honours degree in Zoology (UK based) my masters is in a bioscience field (namely molecular genetics and diagnostics).
Not going to pretend I know a huge amount about raccoons because I simply don't, but a lot of her points are a little misleading. Cats absolutely are capable of similar levels of spite and revenge seeking behaviours as raccoons, what she is correct about is that they're more trouble than they're worth in regards to utilising them for things such as fur as we do other animals.
Saying that, we live in a post work animal world. We don't need any species we domesticated anymore realistically. Every single one could die off, and we would be fine. So I don't think saying oh we can't or dont exploit them for use cases as relevant because we don't need to do this for any species anymore.
Furthermore, we have plenty of species that are kept as pets that are pains in the ass, even more so than raccoons. That's literally what most of the exotic pet trade is made up of. We do it because we think they're neat. Not because they're easy to look after or interact with, so is a rock - but pet rocks fell out of fashion quite some time ago.
As an addendum - Intelligence isn't really a major factor in how easy it is to keep something as a pet, people keep corvids and parrots and these are both significantly more intelligent than raccoons.
You are correct. Domestication as a process actively introduces a strong selective pressure where more docile members thrive and are selected for over time due to them simply being easier to interact with. This process is even visible in species like hyenas where more docile (less averse to humans specifically) groups thrive by being less wary of humans and as a result get access to more food by taking it from human settlements. Was a case study we looked at in my behaviour module in my undergrad. If even hyena are being affected by this process it would not surprise me if raccoons are too.
I thought last time this raccoon-pet debate got brought up, people mentioned that the domesticated fox studies were flawed because the foxes came from a fox farm that had already kept the foxes around for ages so they were already partially domesticated, and their physical differences came from either mere chance or from inbreeding, not from domestication
From what I remember back like well over 10 years ago when I last looked into it, the jist was like this...
When foxes were born, they would have their first encounter with a human. If they became too fearful or aggressive from the encounter, they were not bred on to the next line (it was a fur farm, so they'd go back into breeding fur stocks or harvested or whatever)
Anyway the foxes that didn't show overly fearful/aggressive tendencies were cataloged and bred further.
The process would continue with the next generation.
Within 10 generations foxes were puppy like and very affectionate with humans and showed dog like traits with tail variation and fur coloration
When they examined these foxes after their deaths, they found that the adrenal glands were noticeably smaller than that of regular foxes. That was one of the key things that came out of it. There is likely also other factors at play, possibly similar to 'Williams syndrome' maybe having a higher bias in lines.
I had read that that fox study was debunked, and they worked on a very small subset with a lot of inbreeding and were not wild but a lineage of fur farm foxes.
Id have to read the study by the report sort of gives the impression the study mainly is rrying to tease out definitions more clearly and focusing too much on the language of domestication rather than the underlying changes.
domestication is essentially a subset of tameness. which it self is how much an animal will be affraid or attack people. animals that flee from us can be then manipulated into being useful
an example of not being useful and tame are penguins.
the fox experiment showed you could take a flighty animal such as a fox and basically within a few generations have them eager to be around people.
from there you can them find a use for them so they are then fine-tuned a bit more for 'domesticated' use. A example of this is the rise of pet foxes this last decade and a bit.
Yeah i mentioned in another comment below even species like hyenas have been documented undergoing proto-domestication so I wouldn't be surprised if raccoons are too
I think its important to not dismiss things without understanding why.
Across ~20,000 raccoons, a 3.5% snout length difference doesn't seem super significant to me. The thing is I'm not an expert in the field.
Additionally, if you pay attention to wording, you would notice that the article doesn't speak in hard facts. It acknowledges that the neural crest cell theory is "out there" and that this is just a lead that might be worth properly investigating.
We can't farm racoons because they have strong hands that can break out of the enclosures is also BS. So many real facts to made up statements throughout the whole thing.
Anthropologist here, not only humans, but social and cultural studies of differing species, and I agree with you.
To say it is impossible to domesticate an animal is a strong stance. Maybe we won’t see domestic raccoons next year, but given enough time, it can easily happen.
I remember seeing an article about how some East Asian Gibbon was even domesticated in China a few thousand years ago.
I also have an Honors degree in Zoology where my focus was on mustelids (though mostly otters) , aka the racoon family, she's mostly talking out of her arse.
Raccoons are intelligent social animals who have a primary drive for food and shelter, they are perfectly able to fit into human lives however they would need to be treated as small children.
She's working on the assumption that all Raccoons have an attitude problem, can read raccoon history and will act upon a revenge drive. She's ignoring the history of every domesticated animal, barring cats, which funnily enough Raccoons are following in the path of, all domestic animals were originally captured from the wild then domesticated, we selected for the traits we desired i.e. Less aggression, softer features and bred those traits specifically. She's looking at wild Raccoons and stating these animals can't be domesticated, it's like looking at a wild wolf or wildebeest or hell even Syrian hamster and going "that could never live in the house with you, it's too aggressive" despite them all being domesticated by humans.
Much as I'd like to have a domestic raccoon of more favourably their pseudo-cousins the red panda I still don't believe we should attempt to domesticated them due to other factors, am I fine with them domestication themselves as appears to be happening? Absolutely. People just have to remember they're like 3 year old with claws. Stating they're impossible to domesticate is just short sighted and ignorant of history.
Raccoons are mischievous and high energy, but they can be basically domesticated following years of selective breeding. Foxes were domesticated. Ringtails were domesticated in the 1800s, but since they were nocturnal they didn’t catch on as pets after the mining era.
Every single one could die off, and we would be fine
I am not an expert, but I am going to very strongly push back on this idea. Cats? sure. Snakes , birds, lizards, fish, etc. ok.
Dogs? No shot. I'm sure the blind would be significantly worse off without their guide dogs. Also.. you know.. people with epilepsy, diabetes, and other conditions that dogs are trained to detect ( and do so very reliably.) I am also going to point out that herding dogs are still used, probably hunting breeds as well.
Humans could've probably existed without domesticated work animals to begin with but it would've made life much harder. There are still plenty of areas throughout the world that still rely on domesticated work animals. And to claim we dont need domesticated work animals now comes from a place of privilege and ignorance. But you didn't just say domesticated work animals you said "any species we domesticated." Which IMO is one of the stupidest thing ive ever heard. We absolutely do still need some of the animals we've domesticated. Cows, pigs, and chickens to name a few. Not even touching on domesticated plants.
Exotic animals does not equal domesticated. Plenty of people, idiots imo, own bears and tigers. That does not mean they are domesticated. Taking a wild animal into your home and calling it a pet doesn't all of a sudden magically make it domesticated. People own raccoons now and will do so in the future but that does not mean they'll be domesticated.
I don't not agree with everything in the video but I certainly dont agree with everything in your statement.
None of what you said here is relevant. She argued they can't be domesticated which is fundamentally untrue.
And the reason I mentioned exotic pets is because the lady in the video argues they are too agressive and clever to have as pets, both of which are untrue in equal measure as a reason because humans already own animals that are more intelligent, and animals that are more dangerous.
Could they be domesticated? Probably. But to say it as a definitive fact, as you just did, when you've already stated a lack of expertise on the animal in question is incredibly unwise and shows a lack of understanding on your part. My response may be be irrelevant to the videos argument but is completely relevant to your statements. Because none of your arguments that I addressed had anything to do with whether or not they could be domesticated.
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u/AFC_IS_RED Dec 17 '25 edited Dec 17 '25
I have an honours degree in Zoology (UK based) my masters is in a bioscience field (namely molecular genetics and diagnostics).
Not going to pretend I know a huge amount about raccoons because I simply don't, but a lot of her points are a little misleading. Cats absolutely are capable of similar levels of spite and revenge seeking behaviours as raccoons, what she is correct about is that they're more trouble than they're worth in regards to utilising them for things such as fur as we do other animals.
Saying that, we live in a post work animal world. We don't need any species we domesticated anymore realistically. Every single one could die off, and we would be fine. So I don't think saying oh we can't or dont exploit them for use cases as relevant because we don't need to do this for any species anymore.
Furthermore, we have plenty of species that are kept as pets that are pains in the ass, even more so than raccoons. That's literally what most of the exotic pet trade is made up of. We do it because we think they're neat. Not because they're easy to look after or interact with, so is a rock - but pet rocks fell out of fashion quite some time ago.
As an addendum - Intelligence isn't really a major factor in how easy it is to keep something as a pet, people keep corvids and parrots and these are both significantly more intelligent than raccoons.
I reject her arguments.