Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe KASSEL, Germany, May 26 (UPI) -- Residents of Kassel, Germany, are battling intruders known to them as "wash bears" -- but better known in their native United States as raccoons. Local lore has it that the raccoons are descended from some that were released by a fur farm in 1934 to "enrich the local fauna." Hermann Goering, one of Hitler's top lieutenants, is said to have granted permission. Advertisement Since then, the raccoons have been fruitful and multiplied, spreading across Europe. Efforts to contain them have not been effective. Kassel tried offering bounties for dead raccoons in the 1990s, and found that the females had larger litters to make up for the losses. Kassel, 20 miles from the farm that supplied the first raccoons, is especially heavily infested, The Washington Post reported. "The city of Kassel is divided down the middle," said Theodor Arend, a forestry official, who has a stuffed raccoon in his office. "One says, 'How cute, how nice,' so they give them raisins and bananas. The other side would like to shoot them to the moon."
