Maybe you’ve never heard of this animal and certainly don’t know it as a typical fur animal. There is a reason for this: Raccoon dog fur is referred to in the trade by many different names, often as Finn raccoon, Russian raccoon or Chinese raccoon, due to its visual similarity to this unrelated animal species. Other names are «Seefuchs» or «Tanuki». In fact, the raccoon dog is one of the most widespread fur animals of all.
The predators belong to the group of canids and are kept particularly often in China and to a lesser extent in Finland due to their supposedly low food and husbandry requirements. In structureless wire mesh cages with a maximum area of one square meter and a height of 75 centimeters, raccoon dogs can neither move enough nor act out their exploratory behavior.
The wire mesh floors can cause injuries and deformation of the paws. Due to the poor husbandry and the proximity to conspecifics, the animals are under constant stress. Examples of behavioral disorders include lattice gnawing and fur chewing.
In the wild, the nocturnal omnivores prefer dense undergrowth and proximity to watercourses, where they also dive for fish. Their home ranges are on average almost ten square kilometers in size, with the animals avoiding other species of their own kind. Depending on the weather, raccoon dogs hibernate for the winter, for which they use burrows. Both parents are responsible for rearing the young.
Everyone knows Master Reineke, the red fox (Vulpes vulpes), from our forests. Because of its beautiful red fur, this intelligent and sensitive animal is also kept on fur farms under cruel conditions. It shares this fate with its fellow silver foxes, which have been hunted intensively for centuries because of their impressive silvery-black fur and have been practically exterminated in the wild. Its relatives, the arctic foxes (Alopex lagopus as white or blue foxes), are tortured and killed as fur animals.
The housing conditions for these animals are catastrophic: the cages, which are made entirely of wire mesh, are around 0.8 square meters in size and 70 centimeters high for individual animals. The only equipment is usually a water vessel, only at the time of the whelping period are the fae (female foxes) provided with a living box. The mashed food is smeared onto the cage grid.
In their natural habitat, foxes can inhabit large roaming areas, and burrows serve as resting places and for rearing puppies. The wire mesh of the farm cages, on the other hand, does not offer any structures. The foxes can hardly move. A lack of retreat in the cages also contributes to the animals’ pronounced anxiety or biting among themselves. Foxes cannot fulfill their natural urge to dig. The grid floor injures their paws and the foxes suffer from bone damage due to the lack of exercise.
Cannibalism is also a big problem, especially in breeding: 20 percent of all puppies fall victim to the female cats. In the wild, young are raised in complex social systems.