{"id":543994,"date":"2026-04-22T03:47:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T03:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/543994\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T03:47:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T03:47:17","slug":"raccoon-stowaway-found-on-southampton-cargo-ship-euthanised","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/543994\/","title":{"rendered":"Raccoon stowaway found on Southampton cargo ship euthanised"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  The animal was captured on April 8 after workers spotted it at the Port of Southampton.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  It is believed to have travelled unnoticed among cargo on the Maersk Bognor, although it is not known exactly where it climbed aboard.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Raccoons are not native to the UK and are regarded as a potential biosecurity risk because they can carry illnesses such as rabies, which authorities are determined to keep out of British wildlife.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  It said the UK Government&#8217;s Animal Plant and Health Agency (APHA) &#8220;humanely captured the raccoon, then removed it from the site&#8221; on 8 April.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  A spokesperson for APHA said: &#8220;The animal was humanely put down by a vet, due to the risk that the raccoon might be carrying diseases, including rabies.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The RSPCA said it had \u201cno dealings with the raccoon\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The animal was captured on April 8 after workers spotted it at the Port of Southampton. It is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-543994","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}