Raccoon dogs are omnivores, dining on food sources like rodents and berries. Although they appear svelte in the summer, they pack on the pounds for winter, when their fur also becomes thicker.

Raccoon dogs were implicated in the first SARS-CoV-1 (known at the time simply as SARS) outbreak approximately two decades ago, as wild raccoon dogs have been found to naturally carry it.

A raccoon dog looks out of its cage in a Chinese live animal market in January 2004. Raccoon dogs could have been an initial host for the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic.

Raccoon dogs have long been hunted and bred for their fur, which is likely why they were being sold in the Wuhan market. According to the Humane Society of the United States , millions are killed ...

By 2009, Asian raccoon dogs were so numerous in Sweden that officials asked elk hunters to shoot them on sight. Within a few more years, hunters were shooting 1,000 annually in the Czech Republic ...