Everybody within ten miles of here has now seen the round raccoon. There is a mural, there are bobbleheads, there was a council proclamation. He looks like somebody drew a raccoon from memory.
What I have not seen answered properly anywhere is whether he is actually alright. Is that body shape a condition, does it hurt him, and is the fact that he is out there foraging evidence that he is fine or evidence that nobody has checked?
The detail I liked most in the coverage is that experts credit his mother. An animal that looks different is more vulnerable when young, and the reason there is a round adult raccoon to make bobbleheads of is that she raised him through the part where it mattered.
Which is a better story than the one the internet is telling, and it is actually about raccoons rather than about us.
He got an honorary degree. I am not sure what that says about anybody involved.
The part officials keep repeating and that gets lost under the merchandise: do not go and find him, do not feed him, do not get close for a photograph. Wild raccoons carry bacteria and parasites that transfer to people, and an animal that gets comfortable around humans becomes bold around them, which ends badly for the animal rather than for us.
He is fine because nobody has intervened. Loving him means leaving him alone and buying the bobblehead.
@fused_vertebrae · last wk. · 3 replies
It has been looked at, and the view from the people qualified to have one is that he is likely healthy for his species with no apparent mobility or pain problems. The state wildlife department said much the same: he appears healthy without any human intervention.
The shape is almost certainly short spine syndrome, where the vertebrae are compressed or fused so the back is much shorter than normal. Hence the squashed look, the absent neck and the body sitting straight on the legs.
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@saw_the_video · last wk.
Is it something that gets worse as an animal ages, or is it fixed from birth?
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@fused_vertebrae · last wk.
Present from birth, not contagious, not caught. It has been documented in several species including dogs. How much it affects the animal varies a lot: some have mobility trouble or pain, others adapt remarkably well and live fairly ordinary lives. He appears to be in the second group.
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