Discussion Questions:

• A number of kangaroos died during the research study due to predation or automobile collisions. How does this impact the data gathered? How can researchers anticipate and address the loss of subjects?
• If GPS tracking collars were not available, what other methods could have been used to track kangaroo movement?
• What did the research reveal? How would you use this information to influence government policy? What policies would you put in place to protect the people who live in Canberra? What policies would you put in place to protect the kangaroos who reside in Canberra?

Background Essay:

Kangaroos are iconic to the Australian landscape and are known for their unique locomotion. The eastern gray kangaroo is a formidable marsupial that can grow to be 7 feet tall (2.1 m) and can weigh up to 120 pounds (54 kg). Their hind legs and feet are strong and help to propel the kangaroo into the air. Their tails are particularly muscular and work to maintain balance and direction when they are hopping.

The kangaroo’s strong legs allow this animal to bound 25 feet (8 m) in a single leap and jump up to 10 feet high. They can reach speeds of up to 35 miles per hour (56 km) and can travel for long distances over hilly terrain at an average of 15 miles per hour.

There are tens of thousands of eastern gray kangaroos in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), inhabiting a widespread area from the grassy plains and river valleys to the hills and into the developing city. Each year there are approximately 2,000 motor vehicle collisions with kangaroos in Canberra alone. As a result, the government is investigating kangaroo behavior so they can develop programs to protect the area inhabitants, both human and marsupial.  In this video segment, government researchers Claire Wimpenny and Don Fletcher discuss their research study to track the movements and behavior of twenty-five eastern gray kangaroos in and around Canberra using GPS-enabled collars. This research will provide the government with evidence to make policy decisions regarding future kangaroo control programs, and potentially reduce the risk of motor vehicle collisions.

At the start of this research study, each selected kangaroo is darted with a tranquillizer and then fitted with a radio collar. Such collars were first used for research in 1994 and since their introduction, the size and weight have been reduced, longevity increased, and data storage and retrieval ability improved. Today’s standard collar consists of a GPS receiver and antenna, a VHF beacon system, data storage hardware, and a battery power supply. Each unit records the animal’s positions at every hour of every day over the course of an entire year.  After the period of one year, the collars are preprogrammed to automatically release from the kangaroo and fall off. Once the scientists collect the collars, the information is downloaded and compiled to create a detailed map of the kangaroo’s movements.

The use of GPS technology for wildlife tracking is still relatively new to the field of science. As the technology improves, the depth of the research will also improve. For example, advances in the collar structure have allowed for lighter units to be built for use on smaller animals such as the wolf. Additionally, as the awareness of such research studies spread, government agencies will begin to see the policy implications of such animal movement and behavior pattern data.

For more information, go to:

• Kangaroo Mob: Kangaroo Fact Sheet
• Kangaroo Research
• Movement Behaviour of Kangaroos in Urban Canberra

National Science Education Standards

Grades 5-8:

Content Standard C: Life Science

Fundamental concepts and principles that underlie this standard include:

• Regulation and Behavior
  • An organism’s behavior evolves through adaptation to its environment. How a species moves, obtains food, reproduces, and responds to danger are based in the species’ evolutionary history.

Content Standard D: Earth and Science

Fundamental concepts and principles that underlie this standard include:

• Science and Technology
  • Science and technology are reciprocal. Science helps drive technology, as it addresses questions that demand more sophisticated instruments and provides principles for better instrumentation and technique. Technology is essential to science, because it provides instruments and techniques that enable observations of objects and phenomena that are otherwise unobservable due to factors such as quantity, distance, location, size, and speed. Technology also provides tools for investigations, inquiry, and analysis.
  • Technological designs have constraints. Some constraints are unavoidable, for example, properties of materials, or effects of weather and friction; other constraints limit choices in the design, for example, environmental protection, human safety, and aesthetics.

Content Standard G: History and Nature of Science

Fundamental concepts and principles that underlie this standard include:

• Nature of Science
  • Scientists formulate and test their explanations of nature using observation, experiments, and theoretical and mathematical models. Although all scientific ideas are tentative and subject to change and improvement in principle, for most major ideas in science, there is much experimental and observational confirmation. Those ideas are not likely to change greatly in the future. Scientists do and have changed their ideas about nature when they encounter new experimental evidence that does not match their existing explanations.

Grades 9-12:

Content Standard C: Life Science

Fundamental concepts and principles that underlie this standard include:

• The Behavior of Organisms
  • Organisms have behavioral responses to internal changes and to external stimuli. Responses to external stimuli can result from interactions with the organism’s own species and others, as well as environmental changes; these responses either can be innate or learned. The broad patterns of behavior exhibited by animals have evolved to ensure reproductive success. Animals often live in unpredictable environments, and so their behavior must be flexible enough to deal with uncertainty and change. Plants also respond to stimuli.

Content Standard E: Science and Technology

Fundamental concepts and principles that underlie this standard include:

• Understandings About Science and Technology
  • Science often advances with the introduction of new technologies. Solving technological problems often results in new scientific knowledge. New technologies often extend the current levels of scientific understanding and introduce new areas of research.
  • Creativity, imagination, and a good knowledge base are all required in the work of science and engineering.
  • Science and technology are pursued for different purposes. Scientific inquiry is driven by the desire to understand the natural world, and technological design is driven by the need to meet human needs and solve human problems. Technology, by its nature, has a more direct effect on society than science because its purpose is to solve human problems, help humans adapt, and fulfill human aspirations. Technological solutions may create new problems. Science, by its nature, answers questions that may or may not directly influence humans. Sometimes scientific advances challenge people’s beliefs and practical explanations concerning various aspects of the world.

Content Standard G: History and Nature of Science

Fundamental concepts and principles that underlie this standard include:

• Nature of Scientific Knowledge
  • Scientific explanations must meet certain criteria. First and foremost, they must be consistent with experimental and observational evidence about nature, and must make accurate predictions, when appropriate, about systems being studied. They should also be logical, respect the rules of evidence, be open to criticism, report methods and procedures, and make knowledge public. Explanations on how the natural world changes based on myths, personal beliefs, religious values, mystical inspiration, superstition, or authority may be personally useful and socially relevant, but they are not scientific.
  • Because all scientific ideas depend on experimental and observational confirmation, all scientific knowledge is, in principle, subject to change as new evidence becomes available. The core ideas of science such as the conservation of energy or the laws of motion have been subjected to a wide variety of confirmations and are therefore unlikely to change in the areas in which they have been tested. In areas where data or understanding are incomplete, such as the details of human evolution or questions surrounding global warming, new data may well lead to changes in current ideas or resolve current conflicts. In situations where information is still fragmentary, it is normal for scientific ideas to be incomplete, but this is also where the opportunity for making advances may be greatest.

Discussion Questions:

• How can the cull be considered an example of a practice that is “cruel to be kind”?
• Can culling be done humanely?  Defend your answer.
• What are the limitations to the humane practices of kangaroo sanctuaries and contraception?
• What do you think the best solution is to the surging kangaroo population: the cull, kangaroo sanctuaries or contraception? Explain your rationale.
• Is it wrong to kill an animal that has become part of the Australian identity?  Why or why not?

Background Essay:

The kangaroo is one of Australia’s most iconic animals, but their growing numbers have resulted in a controversy of epic proportions. In the last 50 years the kangaroo population in the Australian capital city of Canberra has exploded from a few hundred to tens of thousands, thusly earning the moniker “Urban Kangaroos.”

The area surrounding Canberra has been in a drought for the past 15 years. As a result, eastern gray kangaroos have been forced from their natural habitat in the hills above the city into suburban lawns and urban parks to graze on grass. Further exacerbating the situation is urban development and a lack of predation.  Urban expansion has resulted in land clearing that provides open pastures for grazing. Additionally, population control has all but wiped out the kangaroos’ natural predator, the dingo.

Overgrazing reduces grassy fields to dust and destroys the natural habitat of a number of endangered species, including the grassland earless dragon, the striped legless lizard, and the golden sun moth. With the kangaroo numbers continuing to grow, the government solution has been to reduce the population though culling, a process that is conducted under the strict environmental controls provided by the Australian Government’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act of 1999. The cull is carried out by experienced marksmen who shoot adult kangaroos in the head, while crushing or decapitating the young joeys. Media coverage and protest groups have brought a great deal of attention to this government practice and have prompted a national debate over the appropriateness of the cull.

The heated debate is leading many scientists to look for more humane and efficient solutions to the surging population that is currently damaging the ecosystem. One alternative is to move a portion of the kangaroos from overpopulated areas to dedicated sanctuaries that can easily accommodate them. Scientists have captured, rehabilitated, and released injured kangaroos into protected areas where the kangaroos can live in their natural habitat without threat or intrusion. Critics of this solution believe there are far too many kangaroos to safely and economically capture and release a large enough number to have a positive impact on the ecosystem. Scientists are also researching methods to limit the reproduction of kangaroos. The research is aimed at developing a species-specific, orally-delivered contraceptive vaccine that can be easily spread out in the wild for eastern gray kangaroos. Current research reveals the vaccine can provide sterility for at least three years. Ongoing drug trials will take researchers approximately 10 years to establish the long-term effectiveness of the drug and its environmental and ecological safety. Until this time, the cull will be the only safe and economic solution to the kangaroo population problem.

For more information, go to:

• Kangaroo Mob: Kangaroo Fact Sheet
• Birth Control for Kangaroos: Scientists’ Population Control Plan
• Kangaroo Population Control Methods
• Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act
• RSPCA Australia Knowledgebase

National Science Education Standards

Grades 5-8:

Content Standard C: Life Science

Fundamental concepts and principles that underlie this standard include:

• Regulation and Behavior
  • All organisms must be able to obtain and use resources, grow, reproduce, and maintain stable internal conditions while living in a constantly changing external environment.
• Populations and Ecosystems
  • A population consists of all individuals of a species that occur together at a given place and time. All populations living together and the physical factors with which they interact compose an ecosystem.
  • The number of organisms an ecosystem can support depends on the resources available and abiotic factors, such as quantity of light and water, range of temperatures, and soil composition. Given adequate biotic and abiotic resources and no disease or predators, populations (including humans) increase at rapid rates. Lack of resources and other factors, such as predation and climate, limit the growth of populations in specific niches in the ecosystem.
• Diversity And Adaptations of Organisms
  • Extinction of a species occurs when the environment changes and the adaptive characteristics of a species are insufficient to allow its survival. Fossils indicate that many organisms that lived long ago are extinct. Extinction of species is common; most of the species that have lived on the earth no longer exist.

Grades 9-12:

Content Standard C: Life Science

Fundamental concepts and principles that underlie this standard include:

• The Interdependence of Organisms
  • Organisms both cooperate and compete in ecosystems. The interrelationships and interdependencies of these organisms may generate ecosystems that are stable for hundreds or thousands of years.
  • Living organisms have the capacity to produce populations of infinite size, but environments and resources are finite. This fundamental tension has profound effects on the interactions between organisms.
• Matter, Energy, and Organization in Living Systems
  • The distribution and abundance of organisms and populations in ecosystems are limited by the availability of matter and energy and the ability of the ecosystem to recycle materials.

Content Standard E: Science and Technology

Fundamental concepts and principles that underlie this standard include:

• Understandings About Science and Technology
  • Scientists in different disciplines ask different questions, use different methods of investigation, and accept different types of evidence to support their explanations. Many scientific investigations require the contributions of individuals from different disciplines, including engineering. New disciplines of science, such as geophysics and biochemistry often emerge at the interface of two older disciplines.

Discussion Questions:

• Explain why kangaroos are attracted to the urban areas of Canberra.
• Should Canberra residents be required to install wildlife-friendly fencing alternatives?  Defend your answer.
• Is there any benefit to culling in areas that are hot spots for vehicle collisions?  Why or why not?
• In this segment, Canberra is described as the “number one killing zone for kangaroos.” Discuss what this statement means.
• What questions should journalists ask when researching kangaroo incidents to ensure that all critical elements of a story are included?

Background Essay:

Under normal circumstances, kangaroos are very shy creatures that tend to avoid contact with humans, but the drought in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) has changed everything. The eastern gray kangaroo has migrated into urban areas where there is an abundance of food sources. Unfortunately, urban living poses its challenges: kangaroos can become ensnared in fences, chased and scared by dogs, or struck and killed by cars.

Further exasperating the situation is the ongoing media attention that has cast kangaroos in a negative light through overly dramatic stories of home invasions and attacks by “kick boxing ninja kangaroos.” The reality is that kangaroos that stray into residential areas often become lost, trapped, or are frightened by dogs or cars. These critical elements of news stories are often overlooked. An urban kangaroo’s primary objective is to find sustenance, not to attack humans or damage property.

Eastern gray kangaroos are natural foragers that prefer short, green pastures. Canberra’s plentiful urban parks and golf courses prove to be especially welcoming to these mammals.  Fences, however, pose a hazard. As development progresses, people tend to divide their land with fences and therefore create obstacles for kangaroos to navigate over and around while seeking grassland. When a kangaroo is ensnared in a fence, it is in danger of being attacked by a predator or suffering an injury. Common fence related Injuries include: ischemic injury, neurological injuries, hip dislocation, fractures, tendon injuries, and general soft tissue wounds. Research suggests that kangaroos freed from wire fence entanglements should be attended to by a veterinarian to ensure that they are not injured. Despite recent media attention and protests, government officials will not mandate wildlife-friendly fencing alternatives to replace wire fencing, which is a hazard to many forms of wildlife.

Canberra is known as the number one killing zone for kangaroos because each year, thousands of kangaroos lose their lives in collisions with cars on busy roads. These accidents can cause both human and animal injuries, along with property damage costing more than one million dollars.  Although kangaroos use their ears to pinpoint sounds and determine direction and distance of cars, any road with cars traveling 80 km/hour (approximately 50 mi /hour) that has a grassy area presents a danger. Most of these accidents happened between dusk and dawn, when kangaroos tend to be searching for food; during colder months, when there is a shortage of food; or on the weekends, when there are more cars on the roads. As a result, “kangaroo crossing” signs are common along roadsides in Australia.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, two out of every five Australian households own a dog. Domestic dogs pose a substantial threat for kangaroos, especially pouch young and joeys. The barking of a dog can set a kangaroo into a panic. When threatened, a kangaroo mob will disperse in multiple directions to confuse the dog. If pursued, a doe will throw her pouch young at the dog in a frenzy to escape. Young joeys are in particular danger because they cannot move as fast as the rest of the mob and can easily be caught by a dog.

Land development has not halted the expansion of the kangaroo population. As of 2010, it is estimated there are over 11.4 million kangaroos across all of Australia. Despite culls and urban dangers, these kangaroos remain an abundant feature of Canberra.

For more information, go to:

• Kangaroo Mob: Kangaroo Fact Sheet
• Eastern Gray Kangaroo
• Living with Kangaroos
• Australian Wildlife Protection Council
• Rescuing and Treating Macropod Fence Injuries

National Science Education Standards

Grades 5-8:

Content Standard C: Life Science

Fundamental concepts and principles that underlie this standard include:

• Regulation and Behavior
  • All organisms must be able to obtain and use resources, grow, reproduce, and maintain stable internal conditions while living in a constantly changing external environment.
  • An organism’s behavior evolves through adaptation to its environment. How a species moves, obtains food, reproduces, and responds to danger are based in the species’ evolutionary history.
• Diversity And Adaptations of Organisms
  • Extinction of a species occurs when the environment changes and the adaptive characteristics of a species are insufficient to allow its survival. Fossils indicate that many organisms that lived long ago are extinct. Extinction of species is common; most of the species that have lived on the earth no longer exist.

Content Standard F: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives

Fundamental concepts and principles that underlie this standard include:

• Risks and Benefits
  • Risk analysis considers the type of hazard and estimates the number of people that might be exposed and the number likely to suffer consequences. The results are used to determine the options for reducing or eliminating risks.
  • Individuals can use a systematic approach to thinking critically about risks and benefits. Examples include applying probability estimates to risks and comparing them to estimated personal and social benefits.

Grades 9-12:

Content Standard C: Life Science

Fundamental concepts and principles that underlie this standard include:

• The Interdependence of Organisms
  • Organisms both cooperate and compete in ecosystems. The interrelationships and interdependencies of these organisms may generate ecosystems that are stable for hundreds or thousands of years.
  • Living organisms have the capacity to produce populations of infinite size, but environments and resources are finite. This fundamental tension has profound effects on the interactions between organisms.
  • Human beings live within the world’s ecosystems. Increasingly, humans modify ecosystems as a result of population growth, technology, and consumption. Human destruction of habitats through direct harvesting, pollution, atmospheric changes, and other factors is threatening current global stability, and if not addressed, ecosystems will be irreversibly affected.
• The Behavior of Organisms
  • Like other aspects of an organism’s biology, behaviors have evolved through natural selection. Behaviors often have an adaptive logic when viewed in terms of evolutionary principles.

Content Standard F: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives

Fundamental concepts and principles that underlie this standard include:

• Natural and Human-Induced Hazards
  • Human activities can enhance potential for hazards. Acquisition of resources, urban growth, and waste disposal can accelerate rates of natural change.
  • Natural and human-induced hazards present the need for humans to assess potential danger and risk. Many changes in the environment designed by humans bring benefits to society, as well as cause risks. Students should understand the costs and trade-offs of various hazards—ranging from those with minor risk to a few people to major catastrophes with major risk to many people. The scale of events and the accuracy with which scientists and engineers can (and cannot) predict events are important considerations.

Discussion Questions:

• What do the Amazon basin and Queensland, Australia have in common? What is the driving force behind this? Which do you think is more important—the needs of human populations or the need to conserve natural habitats and protect the species which live in them? How would you propose striking a balance between the two?
• What are some of the hazards faced by koalas in the suburban habitats in which they now find themselves living?
• Are large highways impassable for koalas? How did scientists learn the answer?
• What measures are Australian authorities taking to protect koala populations from cars? Are they working? How do they know?

Background Essay:

Despite being one of the most recognizable and beloved icons of Australia, the koala is a threatened species. Although the exact size of the current koala population is unknown—ranging from several hundred thousand to as few as 43,000—what is clear is that environmental trends are all working against the species, which once roamed freely across eastern Australia.

As is so often the case, the primary threat to the species has been human activity. The koala population never recovered from the early 20^th century, when millions of koalas were hunted and trapped for their fur. Laws have since been passed throughout Australia prohibiting the harming of koalas, or even ownership of them as pets. Today, the main threat from humans is far less intentional, but far more difficult to stop: land development.

It’s a story familiar to anyone who’s followed the plight of bears, wolves, and many other formerly wild animals whose natural habitat has been cleared and converted into an ever-growing mass of suburban sprawl. Koalas are especially vulnerable as their habitat is restricted to their single food source: eucalyptus gum trees. Koalas require large expanses of healthy, connected eucalyptus forest in which to travel in search of new mates to maintain their genetic diversity. As Australia’s suburbs have expanded over the course of the past century, 80% of its eucalyptus forests have been cleared and partitioned by roads, isolating koala populations in ever smaller and more crowded pockets of “bush.” This isolation in itself presents a serious problem, as increasingly inbred koala populations have proven highly susceptible to sexually transmitted diseases like chlamydia—symptoms of which have been noted in 50% of the koala population of the Australian state of Queensland.

Although individual humans generally regard their furry new neighbors with affection, their suburban environment presents challenges like traffic accidents and dog attacks with which koalas are ill-equipped to contend. Having identified cars as the number one killer of koalas—accounting for over one third of all deaths—Australian authorities have begun planting eucalyptus trees on highway overpasses, building highway underpasses along identified corridors of koala travel, and establishing protected habitats where koalas can live without the hazards of modern human conveniences.

National Science Education Standards

Life Science – Content Standard C
As a result of their activities in grades 9-12, all students should develop understanding of:

• Interdependence of organisms
  • Living organisms have the capacity to produce populations of infinite size, but environments and resources are finite. This fundamental tension has profound effects on the interactions between organisms.
  • Human beings live within the world’s ecosystems. Increasingly, humans modify ecosystems as a result of population growth, technology, and consumption. Human destruction of habitats through direct harvesting, pollution, atmospheric changes, and other factors is threatening current global stability, and if not addressed, ecosystems will be irreversibly affected.

• Behavior of organisms
  • Organisms have behavioral responses to internal changes and to external stimuli. Responses to external stimuli can result from interactions with the organism’s own species and others, as well as environmental changes; these responses either can be innate or learned. The broad patterns of behavior exhibited by animals have evolved to ensure reproductive success. Animals often live in unpredictable environments, and so their behavior must be flexible enough to deal with uncertainty and change. Plants also respond to stimuli.

Science in Personal and Social Perspectives – Content Standard F
As a result of activities in grades 5-8, all students should develop understanding of

• Populations, resources, and environments
  • When an area becomes overpopulated, the environment will become degraded due to the increased use of resources.
  • Causes of environmental degradation and resource depletion vary from region to region and from country to country.

• Natural hazards
  • Human activities also can induce hazards through resource acquisition, urban growth, land-use decisions, and waste disposal. Such activities can accelerate many natural changes.

As a result of activities in grades 9-12, all students should develop understanding of

• Natural resources
  • Humans use many natural systems as resources. Natural systems have the capacity to reuse waste, but that capacity is limited. Natural systems can change to an extent that exceeds the limits of organisms to adapt naturally or humans to adapt technologically.
• Environmental quality
  • Human activities can enhance potential for hazards. Acquisition of resources, urban growth, and waste disposal can accelerate rates of natural change.
• Science and technology in local, national, and global challenges
  • Humans have a major effect on other species. For example, the influence of humans on other organisms occurs through land use—which decreases space available to other species—and pollution—which changes the chemical composition of air, soil, and water.

Discussion Questions:

Before watching the video:

• Two Canadian scientists conducted a study in which they tracked the movements of raccoons in Toronto, Canada. What do you think they could learn from that type of study? What questions could they answer?

After watching the video:

• Discuss why Dupuis-Desormeaux and MacDonald decided to embark on this project and what they wanted to find out.
• What were the main findings of the study? What were some surprises that the scientists discovered after reviewing the data? What conclusions did the researchers make, based on the information they discovered about the raccoons’ territory size?
• In order to conduct this study, the researchers trapped, sedated and placed radio collars on 5 raccoons. What do you think about this methodology? Do you think scientists should place tracking devices on animals in order to gain more information about their behavior? Explain your reasoning.

Background Essay:

In the past 70 years, raccoon populations have dramatically increased in urban areas, including major cities like New York, Chicago and Toronto. Until recently, however, scientists had limited knowledge about how raccoons survive in cities. Thanks to modern technology, they can now track movements of different species and analyze their behavior patterns. In a ground-breaking study, highlighted in the video segment “Observing the Secret Lives of Raccoons,” Canadian biologists Marc Dupuis-Desormeaux and Suzanne MacDonald explored raccoon behavior by placing radio collars on five raccoons in Toronto. The radio collars provided the researchers with GPS locations for the raccoons every 5 to 15 minutes, while previous studies were only able to gather GPS data every 3 to 5 hours. As a result of the frequent readings, Dupuis-Desormeaux and MacDonald were able to gain new insight about where raccoons spend their time. They discovered raccoons don’t usually cross major roads and they tend to have small territories which are, on average, the size of about three city blocks.

Conducting research with wild species poses unique challenges for researchers, since they need to gain information about the animals in their natural environments, without negatively affecting the animals or interfering too much with the species’ activities. The “Three R’s” of animal research, originally outlined by scientists William Russell and Rex Burch in 1959, provide guidelines for humane research and experimentation with animals. The “Three “R’s” include “replacement” (replace animals with microorganisms, metazoan parasites or plants in research studies, whenever possible), “reduction” (use the minimal number of animals possible to conduct the study) and “refinement” (use the most humane and least invasive techniques possible).  Current research with wildlife incorporates modern technology and techniques to conduct research in a way that results in minimal discomfort or distress for the species.

Through their study, Dupuis-Desormeaux and MacDonald successfully gathered data about the behavior of raccoons at night in cities, rather than in a lab environment, zoo, or other controlled setting. The VHF signal transmitted by the radio collars made it possible for the scientists to gather data without having to re-trap the raccoons and remove the collar each time they wanted to download information.

For more information, go to:

• The Three ‘R’s of Russell and Burch
• Three Rs Microsite: Wildlife Research
• NC3Rs – Wildlife research
• Raccoon intelligence at the borderlands of science
• Raccoon Fact Sheet

National Science Education Standards

Grades 5-8:
Content Standard E: Science and Technology
Fundamental concepts and principles that underlie this standard include:

• Understandings about Science and Technology
  • Science and technology are reciprocal. Science helps drive technology, as it addresses questions that demand more sophisticated instruments and provides principles for better instrumentation and technique. Technology is essential to science, because it provides instruments and techniques that enable observations of objects and phenomena that are otherwise unobservable due to factors such as quantity, distance, location, size, and speed. Technology also provides tools for investigations, inquiry, and analysis.

Content Standard G: History and Nature of Science
Fundamental concepts and principles that underlie this standard include:

• Science as a Human Endeavor
  • Women and men of various social and ethnic backgrounds—and with diverse interests, talents, qualities, and motivations—engage in the activities of science, engineering, and related fields such as the health professions. Some scientists work in teams, and some work alone, but all communicate extensively with others.
  • Science requires different abilities, depending on such factors as the field of study and type of inquiry. Science is very much a human endeavor, and the work of science relies on basic human qualities, such as reasoning, insight, energy, skill, and creativity—as well as on scientific habits of mind, such as intellectual honesty, tolerance of ambiguity, skepticism, and openness to new ideas.
• Nature of Science
  • Scientists formulate and test their explanations of nature using observation, experiments, and theoretical and mathematical models. Although all scientific ideas are tentative and subject to change and improvement in principle, for most major ideas in science, there is much experimental and observational confirmation. Those ideas are not likely to change greatly in the future. Scientists do and have changed their ideas about nature when they encounter new experimental evidence that does not match their existing explanations.
  • It is part of scientific inquiry to evaluate the results of scientific investigations, experiments, observations, theoretical models, and the explanations proposed by other scientists. Evaluation includes reviewing the experimental procedures, examining the evidence, identifying faulty reasoning, pointing out statements that go beyond the evidence, and suggesting alternative explanations for the same observations. Although scientists may disagree about explanations of phenomena, about interpretations of data, or about the value of rival theories, they do agree that questioning, response to criticism, and open communication are integral to the process of science. As scientific knowledge evolves, major disagreements are eventually resolved through such interactions between scientists.

Grades 9-12:
Content Standard A: Science as Inquiry
Fundamental concepts and principles that underlie this standard include:

• Understandings about Scientific Inquiry
  • Scientists rely on technology to enhance the gathering and manipulation of data. New techniques and tools provide new evidence to guide inquiry and new methods to gather data, thereby contributing to the advance of science. The accuracy and precision of the data, and therefore the quality of the exploration, depends on the technology used.

Content Standard E: Science and Technology
Fundamental abilities and concepts that underlie this standard include:

• Understandings about Science and Technology
  • Science often advances with the introduction of new technologies. Solving technological problems often results in new scientific knowledge. New technologies often extend the current levels of scientific understanding and introduce new areas of research.

Content Standard G: History and Nature of Science
Fundamental concepts and principles that underlie this standard include:

• Science as a Human Endeavor
  • Individuals and teams have contributed and will continue to contribute to the scientific enterprise. Doing science or engineering can be as simple as an individual conducting field studies or as complex as hundreds of people working on a major scientific question or technological problem. Pursuing science as a career or as a hobby can be both fascinating and intellectually rewarding.

Discussion Questions:

Before watching the video:

• Large numbers of raccoons are now found in cities. What are some reasons you think raccoons survive well in cities?

After watching the video:

• Describe traits, features and/or skills raccoons have which help them survive well in cities.
• Explain how the number of raccoons in cities has changed over the past 70 years.
• Describe some differences between country and city raccoon populations.
• In the segment, it is stated that raccoons, as a species, are possibly becoming smarter as a result of moving into urban environments. Explain this statement.
• Describe some similarities between humans and raccoons.
• Discuss how raccoons, as a species, have changed as a result of living in cities.

Background Essay:

Raccoons originally lived in the tropics and foraged along riverbanks. They then migrated northward in North America, adapting to new territories and expanding their diet. Raccoons are very successful at adjusting to a variety of climates and environments. Raccoons now live as far north as Alaska and in many major cities, including Toronto, Chicago and New York.

Raccoons stay with their mothers for up to one year, during which time their mothers feed, teach and protect them. Scientists believe that animals which spend time with their mothers through their development are, generally, smarter than those that don’t. Raccoon moms teach their young how to survive in urban environments, including how to increase their pace in order to safely cross over a road. Cars are the number one cause of death for urban raccoons. Therefore, learning how to safely cross roads and/or avoid busy streets is an important survival skill. Until recently, scientists knew very little about how raccoons survive in cities. In a recent study, Canadian scientists Marc Dupuis-Desormeaux and Suzanne MacDonald discovered that raccoons in Toronto have a very small territory size and, on average, tend to live in a three-block radius. This indicates that urban raccoons are able to find shelter, food and water without going too far. The study also found that raccoons tend not to cross major highways.

Cities are relatively new environments for wild species and, in order to survive in urban settings, animals must be extremely flexible.  Raccoons are especially well-suited for cities because of their body sizes, sharp sense of smell, omnivorous diet and nimble hands, which can open up doors and containers. They can find food anywhere. Urban food sources, such as garbage and pet food, bring together different species that might not normally be in close contact, making it easier for diseases to spread from one species to another. Raccoons have transmitted diseases– such as raccoon round worm, trichinosis and rabies– to dogs, horses, humans and other species.

City raccoons live longer and have more offspring than raccoons in the country. City raccoons are thriving, and some overrun cities are trying to grapple with the damage they cause on homes and other property. Kassel, Germany has the largest raccoon population in Europe, with up to 100 raccoons per square kilometer. In Kassel, raccoons have caused a lot of property damage. Upon observing the raccoons, scientists discovered that 70% of the time, raccoons caused damage or entered homes by going up drain pipes. Scientists created drain pipe protectors to prevent raccoons from climbing up the pipes. Raccoons learned how to pass over the protectors, leading scientists to create new protectors that were harder for raccoons to navigate. Raccoons are always looking at how they can solve problems and overcome new challenges to reach specific goals/rewards. Even though something might initially be an obstacle for raccoons, they will often find a way to overcome the challenge.

For more information, go to:

• Raccoon Fact Sheet
• Wildlife Damage Management Series: Raccoons
• Raccoons
• Nerves Frayed in Toronto over Roaming Raccoons

National Science Education Standards

Grades 5-8:
Content Standard C: Life Science
Fundamental concepts and principles that underlie this standard include:

• Regulation and Behavior
  • All organisms must be able to obtain and use resources, grow, reproduce, and maintain stable internal conditions while living in a constantly changing external environment.
  • Regulation of an organism’s internal environment involves sensing the internal environment and changing physiological activities to keep conditions within the range required to survive.
  • Behavior is one kind of response an organism can make to an internal or environmental stimulus. A behavioral response requires coordination and communication at many levels, including cells, organ systems, and whole organisms. Behavioral response is a set of actions determined in part by heredity and in part from experience.
  • An organism’s behavior evolves through adaptation to its environment. How a species moves, obtains food, reproduces, and responds to danger are based in the species’ evolutionary history.
• Diversity and Adaptations of Organisms
  • Biological evolution accounts for the diversity of species developed through gradual processes over many generations. Species acquire many of their unique characteristics through biological adaptation, which involves the selection of naturally occurring variations in populations. Biological adaptations include changes in structures, behaviors, or physiology that enhance survival and reproductive success in a particular environment.

Grades 9-12:
Content Standard C: Life Science
Fundamental concepts and principles that underlie this standard include:

• Biological Evolution
  • Species evolve over time. Evolution is the consequence of the interactions of (1) the potential for a species to increase its numbers, (2) the genetic variability of offspring due to mutation and recombination of genes, (3) a finite supply of the resources required for life, and (4) the ensuring selection by the environment of those offspring better able to survive and leave offspring.
• The Behavior of Organisms
  • Organisms have behavioral responses to internal changes and to external stimuli. Responses to external stimuli can result from interactions with the organism’s own species and others, as well as environmental changes; these responses either can be innate or learned. The broad patterns of behavior exhibited by animals have evolved to ensure reproductive success. Animals often live in unpredictable environments, and so their behavior must be flexible enough to deal with uncertainty and change. Plants also respond to stimuli.
  • Like other aspects of an organism’s biology, behaviors have evolved through natural selection. Behaviors often have an adaptive logic when viewed in terms of evolutionary principles.

Content Standard F: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives
Fundamental concepts and principles that underlie this standard include:

• Science and Technology in Local, National, and Global Challenges
  • Humans have a major effect on other species. For example, the influence of humans on other organisms occurs through land use—which decreases space available to other species—and pollution—which changes the chemical composition of air, soil, and water.

Discussion Questions:

• What is the Exclusion Zone and why was it established?
• What happened to require the political division of the Exclusion Zone?
• How does radiation released into the air by the Chernobyl accident in 1986 get into the bodies of animals today?
• What are the three fundamental questions that German scientists Barbara and Kristoff Promberger have come to the Exclusion Zone to answer? What will the answers tell them?
• How does the Pripyat River contribute to spreading the radioactive pollution of the Chernobyl disaster?
• Who were the Liquidators? Who were most of the people relocated after the Chernobyl disaster?

Background Essay:

On April 26, 1986 an accident in one of the reactors at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Soviet Union caused a meltdown. The resulting fire sent a billowing cloud of radioactive smoke over an area of 100,000 square kilometers of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

The reactor fire was eventually contained by the valiant self-sacrifice of the plant’s firefighters, many of whom died shortly thereafter from acute radiation sickness.  600,000 workers, known as “liquidators,” were then brought in to clean up the contaminated site. Their main task was the construction of a containment structure—known as the “sarcophagus”—over the damaged reactor to prevent further meltdown and seal off radiation leaks.  Even though they wore heavy protective gear, liquidators working in the areas of greatest radioactivity around the reactor had to be rotated out every 40 seconds. By the time the sarcophagus had been completed in December 1986, the liquidators had, on average, sustained the official lifetime limit of radiation exposure.

Chernobyl was the single greatest nuclear accident in history, releasing 400 times more radioactivity into the atmosphere than the Hiroshima bomb and tripling the world’s “background” radiation level.  It is one of only two nuclear disasters classified as a “Level 7”—the highest severity—the other being the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster in Japan. The Soviet Union only officially announced the disaster three days after the explosion, after scientists in Sweden noticed radiation on their shoes before entering a nuclear facility. Soviet authorities eventually evacuated approximately 400,000 people from Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia—the areas of most concentrated contamination.

Today, an area extending 19 miles in all directions from the plant is known as the “exclusion zone,” uninhabited by humans except for several hundred elderly residents of the area who have chosen to live out their lives in their contaminated homes. The area has largely reverted to its original forest and swamp environment, and many animal species are thriving in the restored habitat, but radiation levels remain so high that the workers who are in the process of building a new sarcophagus around the damaged reactor are only allowed to work five hours a day for one month before taking 15 days of rest. Ukrainian officials estimate the area will not be completely safe for human life again for another 20,000 years.

A United Nations report directly attributed 64 deaths to fallout radiation from Chernobyl, but the long-term health consequences for the millions exposed to radioactivity are difficult to ascertain.  The UN estimates that upwards of 4,000 people may eventually die of disease—mostly cancer and leukemia—linked to their exposure, and other sources estimate over 200,000 premature deaths linked to the disaster.

National Science Education Standards

Science in Personal and Social Perspectives – Content Standard F

As a result of activities in grades 5-8, all students should develop understanding of

• Personal health
  • Natural environments may contain substances (for example, radon and lead) that are harmful to human beings. Maintaining environmental health involves establishing or monitoring quality standards related to use of soil, water, and air.
• Populations, resources, and environments
  • Causes of environmental degradation and resource depletion vary from region to region and from country to country.
• Natural hazards
  • Human activities also can induce hazards through resource acquisition, urban growth, land-use decisions, and waste disposal. Such activities can accelerate many natural changes.
• Risks and benefit
  • Risk analysis considers the type of hazard and estimates the number of people that might be exposed and the number likely to suffer consequences. The results are used to determine the options for reducing or eliminating risks.
  • Students should understand the risks associated with natural hazards (fires, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions), with chemical hazards (pollutants in air, water, soil, and food), with biological hazards (pollen, viruses, bacterial, and parasites), social hazards (occupational safety and transportation), and with personal hazards (smoking, dieting, and drinking).

As a result of activities in grades 9-12, all students should develop understanding of

• Personal and community health
  • Hazards and the potential for accidents exist. Regardless of the environment, the possibility of injury, illness, disability, or death may be present. Humans have a variety of mechanisms—sensory, motor, emotional, social, and technological—that can reduce and modify hazards.
• Natural and human-induced hazards
  • Human activities can enhance potential for hazards. Acquisition of resources, urban growth, and waste disposal can accelerate rates of natural change.
  • Some hazards, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and severe weather, are rapid and spectacular. But there are slow and progressive changes that also result in problems for individuals and societies. For example, change in stream channel position, erosion of bridge foundations, sedimentation in lakes and harbors, coastal erosions, and continuing erosion and wasting of soil and landscapes can all negatively affect society.
  • Natural and human-induced hazards present the need for humans to assess potential danger and risk. Many changes in the environment designed by humans bring benefits to society, as well as cause risks. Students should understand the costs and trade-offs of various hazards—ranging from those with minor risk to a few people to major catastrophes with major risk to many people. The scale of events and the accuracy with which scientists and engineers can (and cannot) predict events are important considerations.
• Science and technology in local, national, and global challenges
  • Humans have a major effect on other species. For example, the influence of humans on other organisms occurs through land use—which decreases space available to other species—and pollution—which changes the chemical composition of air, soil, and water.

Discussion Questions:

• What does the existence of newborn wolf pups in the Exclusion Zone prove about the local wolf population?
• Is there any evidence that long term radiation exposure is affecting the health of white lab rats?
• What is the Red Forest?
• Why is a windy day particularly dangerous in the Zone?
• What is the rate of genetic abnormalities in the dormice in the Zone? What impact does this have on the dormouse population more generally?
• How does the reproduction rate of dormice inside the Zone compare with those outside it? What might be responsible for this?

Background Essay:

We tend to think of radiation as something inherently harmful to living things. When getting X-rayed, we shield ourselves with heavy lead aprons from as much of the processes’ radiation as possible; we use radiation therapy to destroy cancerous cells; and we are grimly aware from grainy newsreel footage of the horrific damage done to human bodies by the radioactive blasts of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atom bombs in World War II. These are all, however, exceptional instances of artificially intensified radiation.

Radiation is most simply defined as the process by which energy particles or waves move through space. It is commonly differentiated into “ionized” and “non-ionized” types, with the latter including such relatively safe and familiar phenomena as heat, light, and radio waves. Ionized radiation, however, has sufficient energy to “ionize” atoms by stripping them of electrons, and in sufficient quantities, it can be particularly damaging to the cell structure and genetic code (DNA) of living organisms.

A certain amount of ionized radiation—called “background radiation”—is all around us, all the time. It is a naturally occurring part of the environment, coming from both outer space in the form of “cosmic” radiation, and the earth itself as “terrestrial” radiation. It is common in certain building materials like brick and stone, and certain potassium-rich foods like bananas and Brazil nuts. It is found in the air that we breathe, which is laced with radon gas from the earth’s crust. Overall, these natural sources account for about half of a U.S. citizen’s total annual average radiation exposure, with the other half coming mostly from diagnostic medical procedures like X-rays and CT scans. No adverse health effects have been discerned from normal doses of radiation exposure.

Occasionally, however, humans have been exposed to much higher levels of radiation. Firefighters and other first-response emergency workers at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant meltdown in 1986 received up to 16,000 times the maximum recommended annual radiation exposure. Such intensely high exposure—even if only for a short duration—destroys cells and triggers Acute Radiation Syndrome, the massive and painful organ failure which killed 28 of the emergency workers within three months.

Lower doses of radiation over longer periods of time tend to damage or alter the DNA of irradiated cells rather than killing them outright. Cancers—often undetected for extended latency periods—are the most common consequence of low-level radiation. Genetic effects include an increased risk of still birth and low birth weight, infant and childhood mortality, and congenital abnormalities and mutations that may or may not affect later generations. Research on humans who have suffered long-term exposure is inconclusive and heavily debated, but research in the Exclusion Zone surrounding the site of the Chernobyl disaster suggests that while animal populations there may suffer a higher rate of individual birth defects, their overall health is robust and their population is booming.

National Science Education Standards

Science in Personal and Social Perspectives – Content Standard F

As a result of activities in grades 5-8, all students should develop understanding of

• Personal health
  • Natural environments may contain substances (for example, radon and lead) that are harmful to human beings. Maintaining environmental health involves establishing or monitoring quality standards related to use of soil, water, and air.
• Populations, resources, and environments
  • Causes of environmental degradation and resource depletion vary from region to region and from country to country.
• Risks and benefits
  • Risk analysis considers the type of hazard and estimates the number of people that might be exposed and the number likely to suffer consequences. The results are used to determine the options for reducing or eliminating risks.
  • Students should understand the risks associated with natural hazards (fires, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions), with chemical hazards (pollutants in air, water, soil, and food), with biological hazards (pollen, viruses, bacterial, and parasites), social hazards (occupational safety and transportation), and with personal hazards (smoking, dieting, and drinking).

As a result of activities in grades 9-12, all students should develop understanding of

• Personal and community health
  • Hazards and the potential for accidents exist. Regardless of the environment, the possibility of injury, illness, disability, or death may be present. Humans have a variety of mechanisms—sensory, motor, emotional, social, and technological—that can reduce and modify hazards.
• Natural and human-induced hazards
  • Human activities can enhance potential for hazards. Acquisition of resources, urban growth, and waste disposal can accelerate rates of natural change.
  • Some hazards, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and severe weather, are rapid and spectacular. But there are slow and progressive changes that also result in problems for individuals and societies. For example, change in stream channel position, erosion of bridge foundations, sedimentation in lakes and harbors, coastal erosions, and continuing erosion and wasting of soil and landscapes can all negatively affect society.
  • Natural and human-induced hazards present the need for humans to assess potential danger and risk. Many changes in the environment designed by humans bring benefits to society, as well as cause risks. Students should understand the costs and trade-offs of various hazards—ranging from those with minor risk to a few people to major catastrophes with major risk to many people. The scale of events and the accuracy with which scientists and engineers can (and cannot) predict events are important considerations.
• Science and technology in local, national, and global challenges
  • Humans have a major effect on other species. For example, the influence of humans on other organisms occurs through land use—which decreases space available to other species—and pollution—which changes the chemical composition of air, soil, and water.

Discussion Questions:

• What massive project did the Soviet Union undertake in the Pripyat Marshes in the 1920s? What did it entail?
• What was the purpose of “land improvement?”
• Since the Chernobyl disaster, how has wildlife helped restore the land to its original state?

Background Essay:

The Pripyat Marshes is the vast “inland delta” of the Pripyat River and its tributaries covering approximately 100,000 square miles of the Eastern European nations of Belarus and Ukraine.  The landscape of swampy rivers, sandy floodplains, and dense forests has never been particularly hospitable to human habitation. They were for centuries a largely impassable wilderness and a major strategic obstacle for invaders ranging from Ghenghis Khan to Hitler.

In the 1870s, when the marshes fell within Tsarist Russia’s borders, the first attempts were made to drain the land and put it to agricultural use.  These efforts were revived with considerably greater fervor in the 1920s, with the establishment of the Soviet Union and its aggressive Five Year Plans to modernize and expand the Soviet economy.  This “land improvement” involved clearing vast swathes of forest, damming rivers into reservoirs, and digging thousands of miles of canals. Thousands of settlers were brought in to work on newly established government-owned “collective farms,” where they worked together to help grow and harvest the rye, barley, wheat, and flax which made Ukraine the “breadbasket of the Soviet Union.”

While making parts of the Pripyat Marshes much more habitable and productive for the Soviets, land improvement destroyed much of the natural wetland ecosystem which had once thrived there. The elk, wolves, foxes, and other game animals which survived were aggressively hunted, as were beavers, considered vermin because their dams obstructed canals.

Even after the agricultural settlement of the southern Pripyat Marshes, the overall human population there remained relatively sparse, and this, combined with the availability of water from the Pripyat River, determined the government’s decision in 1970 to build the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on the river, along with an adjoining city of modern steel and concrete called Pripyat to house the plant’s workers.

Pripyat was evacuated on April 27, 1986—the day after the accident at Chernobyl. Told only to bring the bare necessities, Pripyat’s residents would never return, leaving the city an eerie time capsule of that day. The sudden death of nearby pines in what would become known as “The Red Forest” seemed to confirm fears that nuclear contamination would render the area a desert.  An “Exclusion Zone” was established around Chernobyl, cordoning off the area of greatest radioactivity from everyone but official government workers.

Nature in the Exclusion Zone has proven far more resilient than expected. Suddenly and completely free of the humans who had hunted them for centuries and destroyed so much of their natural habitat, however, and despite lingering levels of radioactivity that would be unacceptable for humans, wildlife has flourished. With it has come a gradual return of the land itself to its natural, pre-“improvement” state. Forests are overgrowing abandoned cities and beavers are busily damming rivers and canals, returning hard-won agricultural land to swampy marsh and reestablishing the complex wetlands ecosystem which once thrived there. Much like the Chernobyl disaster itself, the new wilderness of the Exclusion Zone is a stark reminder of human limitations.

National Science Education Standards

Life Science – Content Standard C

As a result of their activities in grades 5-8, all students should develop understanding of

• Populations and ecosystems
  • The number of organisms an ecosystem can support depends on the resources available and abiotic factors, such as quantity of light and water, range of temperatures, and soil composition. Given adequate biotic and abiotic resources and no disease or predators, populations (including humans) increase at rapid rates. Lack of resources and other factors, such as predation and climate, limit the growth of populations in specific niches in the ecosystem.

As a result of their activities in grades 9-12, all students should develop understanding of

• Interdependence of organisms
  • Living organisms have the capacity to produce populations of infinite size, but environments and resources are finite. This fundamental tension has profound effects on the interactions between organisms
  • o Human beings live within the world’s ecosystems. Increasingly, humans modify ecosystems as a result of population growth, technology, and consumption. Human destruction of habitats through direct harvesting, pollution, atmospheric changes, and other factors is threatening current global stability, and if not addressed, ecosystems will be irreversibly affected.

Science in Personal and Social Perspectives – Content Standard F

As a result of activities in grades 5-8, all students should develop understanding of

• Populations, resources, and environments
  • Causes of environmental degradation and resource depletion vary from region to region and from country to country.
• Natural hazards
  • Human activities also can induce hazards through resource acquisition, urban growth, land-use decisions, and waste disposal. Such activities can accelerate many natural changes.

As a result of activities in grades 9-12, all students should develop understanding of

• Science and technology in local, national, and global challenges
  • Humans have a major effect on other species. For example, the influence of humans on other organisms occurs through land use—which decreases space available to other species—and pollution—which changes the chemical composition of air, soil, and water.

Discussion Questions:

Before watching the video:

• In the 1970s, the Japanese began importing raccoons so people could adopt them as pets. Many of these raccoons were then released into Japan’s forested areas. What do you think are some potential consequences of these actions?

After watching the video:

• Explain why thousands of people in Japan started adopting raccoons in the 1970s. Discuss factors that have contributed to the increased numbers of raccoons in Japan since the 1970s.
• Describe the current raccoon problem in Japan and what people are doing to solve it.
• Explain why people released raccoons into the forest, and whether you think they anticipated the damage that raccoons have caused.
• Mammalogist Mieko Kawamichi has been hired to kill over 10,000 raccoons each year in order to reduce the raccoon population in Japan and protect the sacred temples and shrines. What do you think about this approach to the situation? Explain your reasoning. Can you think of another way to solve the current problem without killing the raccoons? Describe your solution.
• People started adopting raccoons as pets after watching the cartoon Rascal the Raccoon. What do you think the creators of a TV show or movie could do to prevent people from going out to adopt the species featured in the program? Do you think the creators of media programs have a responsibility to warn people of the potential dangers related to adopting animals as pets?

Background Essay:

Raccoons, which are not indigenous to Japan, have damaged more than 80% of Japanese temples. The forested areas of Japan are currently overrun with raccoons and, as a result, Japanese authorities have adopted a “zero tolerance” policy, killing over 10,000 raccoons each year in efforts to reduce raccoon populations and minimize damage to temples, shrines, and native wildlife.

Japan is not the only country with raccoon problems. In the early 1930s, a few raccoons were released in the German countryside outside Berlin to amuse hunters and, in 1945, about two dozen raccoons escaped from a local fur farm. Since that time, the raccoon population has multiplied and now Germany has approximately 1 million raccoons, the largest raccoon population outside of North America. Kassel, in Central Germany, has the largest raccoon population in Europe, with up to 100 raccoons per square kilometer. German authorities have tried different strategies to deal with the raccoon problem, including killing raccoons and creating drainpipe protectors to prevent raccoons from climbing up them and causing damage to homes. Germany and Japan are still trying to find the best ways to deal with their raccoon problems.

Although raccoons are not native to Japan, the cartoon Rascal the Raccoon, which aired in Japan in the 1970s, inspired individuals to adopt baby raccoons as pets and, as a result, Japan imported thousands of raccoons from North America. After keeping raccoons in their homes and seeing how violent and destructive they could be, thousands of families got rid of them by releasing them into the forested areas of Japan, as was shown in one of the scenes in the cartoon.

Other TV shows and movies featuring animals have similarly inspired people to adopt pets and then, after realizing that the animals weren’t as cute and cuddly as in the program, get rid of them.  This trend is often referred to as the “101 Dalmatians Syndrome” (or “101 Dalmatians Effect”) since thousands of families adopted Dalmatian puppies after the release of the popular movie “101 Dalmatians,” and then, after finding they were difficult to take care of, brought them to animal shelters and/or abandoned them. Within a year of the 1996 release of that movie, there was a 25% increase in Dalmatians at shelters and rescue organizations. Movies such as Legally Blonde and Beverly Hills Chihuahua, as well as Taco Bell commercials featuring a talking Chihuahua, led to increased popularity of Chihuahuas, and Along Came Polly led to increased interest in ferrets.

In recent years, in order to prevent people from running out to adopt a species featured in a show, media and animal rights organizations have distributed information about animals and encouraged families to conduct research before selecting a pet. For example, for the 2000 release of 102 Dalmatians, the Humane Society distributed information about the challenges of owning Dalmatians and Disney included a message at the end of the movie, encouraging responsible pet ownership. Similarly when the movie G-Force, featuring computer-generated guinea pigs, was released in 2009, animal rescue groups created information discouraging families from adopting guinea pigs, and statements were included in the movie’s promotional materials and website encouraging people to think carefully and conduct research before adopting pets.

For more information, go to:

• Raccoon Fact Sheet
• Hordes of raccoons invade Germany
• Why It’s Never “Just Fiction”
• We’ve come a long way, baby — Disney’s “102 Dalmatians” encourages moviegoers to consider pet adoption carefully

National Science Education Standards

Grades 5-8:

Content Standard C: Life Science
Fundamental concepts and principles that underlie this standard include:

• Populations and Ecosystems
  • The number of organisms an ecosystem can support depends on the resources available and abiotic factors, such as quantity of light and water, range of temperatures, and soil composition. Given adequate biotic and abiotic resources and no disease or predators, populations (including humans) increase at rapid rates. Lack of resources and other factors, such as predation and climate, limit the growth of populations in specific niches in the ecosystem.

Content Standard F: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives
Fundamental concepts and principles that underlie this standard include:

• Populations, Resources and Environments
  • When an area becomes overpopulated, the environment will become degraded due to the increased use of resources.
• Natural Hazards
  • Human activities also can induce hazards through resource acquisition, urban growth, land-use decisions, and waste disposal. Such activities can accelerate many natural changes.
  • Natural hazards can present personal and societal challenges because misidentifying the change or incorrectly estimating the rate and scale of change may result in either too little attention and significant human costs or too much cost for unneeded preventive measures.
• Risks and Benefits
  • Individuals can use a systematic approach to thinking critically about risks and benefits. Examples include applying probability estimates to risks and comparing them to estimated personal and social benefits.
  • Important personal and social decisions are made based on perceptions of benefits and risks.

Grades 9-12:

Content Standard C: Life Science
Fundamental concepts and principles that underlie this standard include:

• The Interdependence of Organisms
  • Human beings live within the world’s ecosystems. Increasingly, humans modify ecosystems as a result of population growth, technology, and consumption. Human destruction of habitats through direct harvesting, pollution, atmospheric changes, and other factors is threatening current global stability, and if not addressed, ecosystems will be irreversibly affected.

Content Standard F: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives
Fundamental concepts and principles that underlie this standard include:

• Natural and Human-Induced Hazards
  • Human activities can enhance potential for hazards. Acquisition of resources, urban growth, and waste disposal can accelerate rates of natural change.
  • Natural and human-induced hazards present the need for humans to assess potential danger and risk. Many changes in the environment designed by humans bring benefits to society, as well as cause risks. Students should understand the costs and trade-offs of various hazards—ranging from those with minor risk to a few people to major catastrophes with major risk to many people. The scale of events and the accuracy with which scientists and engineers can (and cannot) predict events are important considerations.