Once raccoons were brought to Germany, because they were needed. Today many people wish them gone. Plenty of horror stories circulate. The film explains what can be believed.

Allegedly raccoons feed on anything and anyone. In a way that is true. They are omnivores. But most of the stories about their gluttony belong in the realm of myth. For example the anecdote of a hunter, who claimed he saw a pack of raccoons take down a roe deer. Science has proved those cockandbull stories wrong. But the rumours die hard.

Today approximately half a million raccoons are living in Germany. Even in major cities like Kassel they make trouble. It all started in the first half of the last century with fur farms. Since fur produced in captivity was of lesser quality than fur from the wild, farmer Rolf Haag and verderer Baron Sittich of Berlepsch decided to release two gestate pairs into the forest. According to contemporary witnesses soldiers from the Wehrmacht formed a guard of honour and a band played the national anthem.

The raccoons came upon ideal living conditions and multiplied busily. Even more so after people stopped shooting them when raccoon's fur went out of fashion. All of a sudden hunters started worrying about all the other animals the raccoons were allegedly feeding on. Voices arose that demanded to wipe out all of the raccoons in Germany completely. They still haven't become silent.

For a long time there were no extensive studies on how raccoons affect the native species. Only in 2006 the biologists Frank Uwe Michler and Berit Köhnemann started to shed light on the issue with surprising and mainly comforting conclusions.

The documentary lets the history of raccoons in Germany come to life in reenactments and shows how they live in forests and cities and portrays the work of the scientists.

Without giving too much away it can be said that it is almost impossible to exterminate the raccoons. Europe will just have to live with them. The raccoons have come to stay.