For at least the past decade Japan has seen a raccoon infestation of epic proportions — but the country has no one to blame but itself.
The mischievous scavengers are not native to Japan, but were brought into the country as pets during the 1970s following the popularity of the 1977 anime Rascal the Raccoon, based on the autobiographical novel Rascal, A Memoir of a Better Era by Sterling North, according to The Guardian.
However, the raccoon population began to soar after they had either escaped or been abandoned and thrived in the wild. Since then, they’ve been a menace to local neighborhoods.
Attempts to keep the raccoon population under control have failed thus far, due to their intelligence, and their ability to breed in great numbers and quickly adapt to unfamiliar environments.
If Rascal the Raccoon could only see what he started.