A wild raccoon dog appeared at JR Shinjuku Station in Tokyo on the night of September 2, 2022. Videos and photos of him striding through the aisles in the crowd are flooding Twitter. We interviewed witnesses and JR East.
In the event of an abnormality, report it to the staff and “do not touch it”
Many videos and photos of the scene were posted on Twitter on the 2nd. In particular, a viral video shows a staff member guiding a raccoon dog walking inside the Shinnan ticket gates not to go to the platform downstairs and to head outside.
Some of the responses to this rarity include, “Why is there a raccoon dog at Shinjuku Station?”, “Did he come to get on the train?” I’m scared because I don’t know what I’m holding,” said a voice.
Hieda Yuki aka Hyden (@hydden0310), a user whose video has been viewed about 1.44 million times, commented on the 6th, “At first, I thought it was a stray cat walking, but he didn’t show any warning or intimidation. It felt like I was walking calmly through the station, which was surprising,” he said in surprise to J-CAST News. It was the first time he had had such an experience.
Regarding the background to the discovery, a public relations representative of JR East’s Tokyo branch office revealed to an interview on the 5th, “A station staff member at the ticket gate noticed the crowd and confirmed that there was a raccoon dog.” It was around 21:30 on the 2nd.
Afterwards, he explained that he let them out of the ticket gates while instructing passengers not to put their hands on them as they might be bitten or scratched. The reason for the appearance of the raccoon dog and the frequency of similar incidents are unknown, but the company said, “We were fortunate that no passengers were injured and train operations were not affected.”
Regarding the future, the spokesperson calls for the following:
“If you find anything abnormal, please tell the station staff. We ask customers not to touch (animals) so as not to harm them.”