‘Screaming and snarling’ raccoon dogs recaptured after terrorising village

A pair of “potentially dangerous” raccoon dogs who terrorised residents and animals after escaping from their enclosure have been recaptured.

The fox-sized creatures, which are native to East Asia, dug their way out of a pen in a Nottinghamshire village earlier this week.

Police warned residents of Clarborough to be “vigilant” about the animals, describing them as “potentially dangerous if approached as they are not domesticated”.

One resident said one of the creatures had attacked her pet goat and pony and cornered another person’s dog.

Mandy Marsh, 53, claimed one of the creatures attacked her animals. She said she was woken up by its screams in the middle of the night.

Along with her husband she said she spent two hours chasing off the “hissing” creature with planks of wood.

“My husband went out and was gone for about 10 minutes and he came back and said, ‘You’ve got to see this,” Ms Marsh said. ”He said, ‘I don’t know what it is, it’s like a wild animal attacking the goat’.

“The pony was standing in the way trying to protect the goat. The raccoon dog was trying to kill it. It was absolutely crazy. It was hissing and screaming and snarling. It was going absolutely mad.”

Ms Marsh added that when they finally got rid of the creature, it returned to corner a passing dog walker.

“The dog was going crazy. It was squawking and barking and my husband grabbed it,” she said.

The raccoon dogs’ owner said they never posed a serious threat.

The animals were eventually found and recaptured in the local area late on Friday, Nottinghamshire Police said.

Also known as a tanuki, raccoon dogs are native to the forests of eastern Siberia, northern China, North Vietnam, Korea, and Japan.

They are omnivores who eat insects, rodents, amphibians, birds, fish and molluscs, as well as fruits, nuts and berries.

According to the RSPCA, the animals are “not suited to life as a pet in a domestic environment” and it would “strongly discourage” anyone buying or keeping one.

There are also strict legal restrictions on keeping, selling, rehoming and breeding raccoon dogs.

The species has become widespread in some European countries as a result of accidental release or escapes.

Earlier this year the European Union added raccoon dogs to a list of invasive alien species of concern, as they are deemed to be harmful to native wildlife.

Additional reporting by PA