Ever wonder what it looks like when you scare a raccoon? You’re about to find out.
Despite their cute appearance, raccoons can be a real nuisance. Trapping them isn’t easy either. For one, they are fairly clever creatures, so not just any trap is enough to outsmart them. And then there’s the fact that anything big enough to capture a raccoon is big enough to capture a whole lot of other animals by accident. Thankfully, a special trap has been created that is designed specifically to capture these masked critters and nothing else.
Called the “Raccoon Cube,” the trap was developed jointly by the Saitama Prefecture Agricultural Technology Research Center in Kumagaya City and a private trap manufacturer called Sakae Industry. The trap was designed not to be triggered by other similarly sized animals, such as cats, dogs, and raccoon dogs. It achieves this by capitalizing on the tendency of raccoons to use their front legs like hands.
A raccoon reaching into the tube in the Raccoon Cube containing the bait and triggering mechanism
Shaped like a cube, the trap is a cage with a special triggering mechanism located in the end farthest from the cage’s entrance and accessible only via a 17 cm long tube. When set, the triggering mechanism contains bait and the entrance to the cage is open. Once a hungry raccoon goes into the cage and reaches into the tube with its hand-like forelegs, the trap is triggered, the cage shuts behind it, and, as evidenced by the video below, gives the raccoon the scare of its life.
After being announced on February 26, it was reported that the Raccoon Cube would go on sale to cities and towns across Japan in April. However, reports said that there were, as of yet, no plans of making the trap available to the public.
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Sources: Choujuhigai, News Salt
Image: 捕獲実証試験｜アライグマ専用箱わな「Raccoon cube（ラクーンキューブ）」(鳥獣被害対策.com鳥獣被害対策ドットコム YouTube)
