A butcher in northeast Germany has come up with what he believes is an innovative solution to the country’s growing raccoon problem: turning them into sausages and other meat products.
Michael Reiss, a hunter who set up a butcher’s shop in Kade, about 90 kilometers (60 miles) west of Berlin, in 2022, told CNN Wednesday that he developed the idea after trying to think of a standout product to take to the Green Week international food fair.
He realized that raccoons who are killed as pests are simply thrown in the bin, and decided to ask local officials if they could instead be processed and turned into food.
After receiving the green light, Reiss started making his “raccoon balls,” meatballs made from raccoon meat, which he said turned out to be a hit at the fair and with customers at his shop, which is called Wildererhütte.
Soon Reiss was selling online, and he now makes a total of seven raccoon meat products, including salami.
“We’re the only place in Europe selling raccoon meat,” Reiss told CNN.
“People come from all over, sometimes driving 150 kilometers (93 miles) to come to my store and combining it with an daytrip because they want to try raccoon.”
And it’s not just an unusual novelty.
“It is well received. I’ve never had anyone say it’s disgusting or that you can’t eat it. Honestly, everyone likes it,” said Reiss.
Those tempted to try for themselves might be further encouraged by what Reiss describes as a certain degree of familiarity.
“What does it taste like? Not too dissimilar to other meats you know. It doesn’t have a overly unique taste. It’s slightly softer than other meat,” he said.
“If you eat two sausages, you’d know which one is raccoon. But if you didn’t know, you wouldn’t realize that anything is too different.”
While Reiss’ raccoon products have become a novelty attraction for visitors to Kade, they are also a response to a serious problem, he says.
After being introduced to Germany for use in fur farms in the 1920s, raccoons were first released into the wild in 1934, according to the Nature And Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU).
Since then, the mammals, who are highly adaptable and can live in towns and cities as well as forests and grasslands, have bred swiftly.
There are now an estimated 2 million raccoons in Germany, reported German press agency DPA, citing researchers at the Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt.
The animals, who are originally from North America, typically weigh around 10 kilograms (22 pounds), but large males can reach 20 kilograms (44 pounds).
They now represent a danger to domestic biodiversity, especially the reptiles and amphibians that they eat, according to Germany’s Senckenberg Nature Research Society.
Such is their impact on endangered species that some have called for raccoon populations to be managed.
NABU, one of the country’s largest and best known conservation societies, says that hunting them is not the solution.
Although they were initially protected, raccoons are now able to be hunted in almost every German state, but how to deal with them remains controversial.
Instead measures should be undertaken to better protect endangered species in general – meaning they’d be less at risk from raccoons, says the group.
