‘Drunken raccoons raiding homes and killing pets’

That’s from a report in The Telegraph, out of Germany.

How did they know that the raccoons were sozzled?  This is the evidence put forth in the report:

Local media reports suggest that the animals, introduced during the Nazi rule, have been eating pet bunny rabbits and fish. Meanwhile, some claim that they have also been drinking beer during their rampages.

Berthold Langenhorst, of the nature organisation Nabu, says that “raccoons are funny and clever… and they like beer”. He describes how he recently watched them knocking beer bottles over at a lake side to get at the liquid inside.

The report also offers this bit of trivia:

The DJV [Germany’s National Hunting Association] advocates making raccoon meat a part of the national diet and using the fur for “high quality, eco-friendly clothes.”

Raccoons were first brought to Germany in the 1920s, but the first pair were released into the wild at the beginning of the Nazi era.

Urban legend long held that Hermann Göring personally ordered their release, but this version of events has recently been debunked by historians.

It now seems more likely that a local forester released them without explicit approval from the Nazis.