Is the raccoon dog a protected animal? Understanding the raccoon dog's protection status in one article

The raccoon dog, also known as haozi, is a species in the family Canidae of the order Carnivora. It is medium-sized, resembling a fox in appearance but more stout. The raccoon dog's fur color varies by region and season. It is distributed in the Asian part of the Soviet Union: Korea, Japan and China. So, is the raccoon dog a protected animal?

Answer: Yes.

The raccoon dog is a terrestrial wild animal that is beneficial, or has important economic or scientific research value, and is under state protection.

Protection level

Listed in The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: Least Concern (LC), assessed in 2008.

Lifestyle and habits

It generally hides in dens during the day and comes out at night. In summer, the raccoon dog stays in shady stone dens; in other seasons, except when giving birth to young, it generally does not use dens, but hides in places not far from the den. It lives alone or in groups of 3-5; when in groups, family units forage in pairs, with a home range of 5-10 km2.

It is not as agile as the dhole or fox, and is relatively docile, with a deep call; it can climb trees and swim. Those distributed in the north often sleep non-continuously in winter (from the Beginning of Winter to Lesser Snow), that is, they sleep in dens without coming out. But unlike true hibernation, they often come out to move about during snow-melting weather. This habit of winter sleep is unique to the raccoon dog among the Canidae. The raccoon dog's footprints are arranged in pairs like a small chain.

Its diet is rather omnivorous, mainly feeding on small animals, including rodents, small birds, bird eggs, fish, frogs, snakes, shrimp, crabs, insects, etc., and it also eats plant foods such as berries, fungi, rhizomes, seeds and grains.

In China, there is a distinction between southern raccoon dogs and northern raccoon dogs. This is the customary division using the Yangtze River as the boundary: raccoon dogs produced south of the Yangtze River are called southern raccoon dogs, and those north of the Yangtze River are called northern raccoon dogs. Northern raccoon dogs are larger in size, with thick and abundant fur, and their fur quality is clearly better than that of southern raccoon dogs. Southern raccoon dogs are smaller in size, with short guard hairs and sparse underfur. Therefore, the vast majority of raccoon dogs currently bred in captivity come from northern raccoon dogs, and the largest number are Wusuli raccoon dogs from Heilongjiang Province.