India, Oct. 21 -- Can a cute cartoon change the wildlife of a country? In Japan, it did. Rascal the Raccoon, a 1977 anime, inspired many families to want a pet raccoon. Today, the animals are found in almost all parts of the country. Takaaki Suzuki and Tohru Ikeda, in a Wildlife Research study, examined local government responses to the raccoon invasion. It surveyed 47 prefectural governments and 366 municipal governments in 2012 and 2013. The results show how difficult the problem is to solve..

Rascal the Raccoon was based on a book by Sterling North about a boy and his pet raccoon. Japanese audiences loved the show. Soon thousands of raccoons from Canada and the U.S. were imported for the pet trade. But raccoons are wild creatures. Man...