My cousin had a family of trash pandas in his garage rafters. Unfortunately mama got hit by a car. All the babies went their own way, except the runt, who didn't seem to know what to do, so he took it in. The thing was so freaking fun and playful and cute. ... RIGHT UNTIL HE HIT PUBERTY. Then it turned in to this vicious fucking devil, and he had to be released. Was like a switch flipped in it's mind. They are a long way from domestication.
Took about forty generations of selected breeding to "domesticate" the silver/gray/Arctic Fox based on that Russian study. So you could probably forcibly domesticate raccoons within 50-100 years depending on breeding cycles.
AFAIK, it's been on life support since the second lead scientist passed away, and has some support from an American-educated scientist who is still publishing results. Can't quite tell whether the original experiment/lineage is still ongoing, the wiki article mentions some sterilized animals being moved to the US and some potential scams in adoptions.
Would be cool if this worked out as a model for other animals, dunno if Russian (or even American) science funding will see it through.
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u/Your_Cat_In_Disguise May 20 '26 edited May 21 '26
I read an article about how raccoons are the housecats of the future on account of them domesticating themselves.
Edit: thanks for the award! I love how many people are coming out of the woodwork to talk about their self-domesticated raccoon friends lmao