title: Niger

text: In December 2000, Niger qualified for enhanced debt relief under the International Monetary Fund program for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) and concluded an agreement with the Fund for Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF). Debt relief provided under the enhanced HIPC initiative significantly reduces Niger's annual debt service obligations, freeing funds for expenditures on basic health care, primary education, HIV/AIDS prevention, rural infrastructure, and other programs geared at poverty reduction.


title: Niger

text: In December 2005, it was announced that Niger had received 100% multilateral debt relief from the IMF, which translates into the forgiveness of approximately US$86 million in debts to the IMF, excluding the remaining assistance under HIPC. Nearly half of the government's budget is derived from foreign donor resources. Future growth may be sustained by exploitation of oil, gold, coal, and other mineral resources. Uranium prices have recovered somewhat in the last few years. A drought and locust infestation in 2005 led to food shortages for as many as 2.5 million Nigeriens.


title: Niger

text: , the population of Niger was . Expanding from a population of 3.4 million in 1960, Niger's population has rapidly increased with a current growth rate of 3.3% (7.1 children per mother).


title: Niger

text: This growth rate is one of the highest in the world and is a source of concern for the government and international agencies. The population is predominantly young, with 49.2% under 15 years old and 2.7% over 65 years, and predominantly rural with only 21% living in urban areas.


title: Niger

text: As in most West African countries, Niger has a wide variety of ethnic groups. The ethnic makeup of Niger in 2001 was as follows: Hausa (55.4%), Zarma & Songhay (21%), Tuareg (9.3%), Fula (; ) (8.5%), Kanuri Manga (4.7%), Tubu (0.4%), Arab (0.4%), Gourmantche (0.4%), other (0.1%). The Zarma and Songhay dominate the Dosso, Tillabéri, and Niamey régions, the Hausa dominate the Zinder, Maradi, and Tahoua regions, Kanuri Manga dominate the Diffa region, and Tuaregs dominate the Agadez region in Northern Niger.


title: Niger

text: French, inherited from the colonial period, is the official language. It is spoken mainly as a second language by people who have received a formal western education and serves as the administrative language. Niger has been a member of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie since 1970.


title: Niger

text: Niger has ten recognized national languages, namely Arabic, Buduma, Fulfulde, Gourmanchéma, Hausa, Kanuri, Zarma & Songhay, Tamasheq, Tassawaq, Tebu. Each is spoken as a first language primarily by the ethnic group with which it is associated. Hausa and Zarma-Songhai, the two most spoken languages, are widely spoken throughout the country as first or second languages.


title: Niger

text: Niger is a secular country and separation of state and religion is guaranteed by Articles 3 and 175 of the 2010 Constitution, which dictate that future amendments or revisions may not modify the secular nature of the republic of Niger. Religious freedom is protected by Article 30 of the same constitution. Islam, widespread in the region since the 10th century, has greatly shaped the culture and mores of the people of Niger. Islam is the most dominant religion, practiced by 99.3% of the population according to the 2012 census.


title: Niger

text: The other two main religions of Niger are Christianity, practiced by 0.3% of the population, and Animism (traditional indigenous religious beliefs), practiced by 0.2% of the population. Christianity was established earlier in the country by missionaries during the French colonial years. Other urban Christian expatriate communities from Europe and West Africa are also present. Religious persecution has flared in recent years in Niger; Christian charity Open Doors now lists Niger as the 37th most difficult country in which to be a Christian on their World Watch List, 'reflecting how pressure is increasing on Christians in this [...] nation.' Relations between Muslims and Christians have generally been cordial, according to the respective representatives of Christian and Muslim groups in Niger.


title: Niger

text: The numbers of Animist practitioners are a point of contention. As recently as the late 19th century, much of the south center of the nation was unreached by Islam, and the conversion of some rural areas has been only partial. There are still areas where animist based festivals and traditions (such as the Bori religion) are practiced by syncretic Muslim communities (in some Hausa areas as well as among some Toubou and Wodaabe pastoralists), as opposed to several small communities who maintain their pre-Islamic religion. These include the Hausa-speaking Maouri (or "Azna", the Hausa word for "pagan") community in Dogondoutci in the south-southwest and the Kanuri speaking Manga near Zinder, both of whom practice variations of the pre-Islamic Hausa Maguzawa religion. There are also some tiny Boudouma and Songhay animist communities in the southwest. Over the past decade, syncretic practices have become less common among Muslim Nigerien communities.


title: Niger

text: The majority of Muslims in Niger are Sunni, 7% are Shi'a, 5% are Ahmadiyya and 20% non-denominational. Islam was spread into what is now Niger beginning in the 15th century, by both the expansion of the Songhai Empire in the west, and the influence of the Trans-Saharan trade traveling from the Maghreb and Egypt. Tuareg expansion from the north, culminating in their seizure of the far eastern oases from the Kanem–Bornu Empire in the 17th centuries, spread distinctively Berber practices.


title: Niger

text: Both Zarma and Hausa areas were greatly influenced by the 18th- and 19th-century Fula led Sufi brotherhoods, most notably the Sokoto Caliphate (in today's Nigeria). Modern Muslim practice in Niger is often tied to the Tijaniya Sufi brotherhoods, although there are small minority groups tied to Hammallism and Nyassist Sufi orders in the west, and the Sanusiya in the far northeast.


title: Niger

text: A small center of followers of Salafi movement within Sunni Islam have appeared in the last thirty years, in the capital and in Maradi. These small groups, linked to similar groups in Jos, Nigeria, came to public prominence in the 1990s during a series of religious riots.


title: Niger

text: Despite this, Niger maintains a tradition as a secular state, protected by law. Interfaith relations are deemed very good, and the forms of Islam traditionally practiced in most of the country are marked by tolerance of other faiths and lack of restrictions on personal freedom. Alcohol, such as the locally produced Bière Niger, is sold openly in most of the country.


title: Niger

text: The literacy rate of Niger is among the lowest in the world; in 2005 it was estimated to be only 28.7% (42.9% male and 15.1% female). Primary education in Niger is compulsory for six years. The primary school enrollment and attendance rates are low, particularly for girls. In 1997, the gross primary enrollment rate was 29.3 percent, and in 1996, the net primary enrollment rate was 24.5 percent.


title: Niger

text: About 60 percent of children who finish primary schools are boys, as the majority of girls rarely attend school for more than a few years. Children are often forced to work rather than attend school, particularly during planting or harvest periods. Nomadic children in the north of the country often do not have access to schools.


title: Niger

text: The child mortality rate in Niger (deaths among children between the ages of 1 and 4) is high (248 per 1,000) due to generally poor health conditions and inadequate nutrition for most of the country's children. According to the organization Save the Children, Niger has the world's highest infant mortality rate.


title: Niger

text: Niger also has the highest fertility rate in the world (6.49 births per woman according to 2017 estimates); this has resulted in nearly half (49.7%) of the Nigerien population being under age 15 in 2020. Niger has the 11th highest maternal mortality rate in the world at 820 deaths/100,000 live births. There were 3 physicians and 22 nurses per 100,000 persons in 2006.


title: Niger

text: Clean drinking water is scarce by global standards, with significant differences between urban and rural areas. Niger is often located at the bottom of the UN Human Development Index. Roughly 92% of the population lives in rural areas in the Tillabéri region along the western frontier, and there is a chronic scarcity of clean water, particularly during the hot season, when temperatures regularly exceed 40 degrees Celsius.


title: Niger

text: Just 40% of the 30,000 inhabitants in Téra, a city northwest of the country's capital of Niamey and near to the Burkina Faso border, have access to a working public water infrastructure. Société de Patrimoine des Eaux du Niger (SPEN), Niger's water authority, opened ten boreholes and built a water treatment plant in 2018 to provide potable water to Téra and the surrounding areas. The water supply ran out about a year later, and the water treatment facility was forced to close.


title: Niger

text: With the help of a donation fund from the Dutch government, the European Investment Bank is collaborating with the Niger water authority to find solutions to Niger's water issues. The World Bank identified Niger as one of the 18 fragile regions of Sub-Saharan Africa. The EU bank has a history of investing in regions like these.


title: Niger

text: The European Investment Bank and the Niger Water Authority are looking at two options for dealing with Téra's water shortages. The first choice is to repair the water tank on the outskirts of town. Another choice is to treat and transport water from the Niger River, which is located more than 100 kilometres to the east. Villages between Téra and the Niger River will also have access to sewage. The European Investment Bank will also look at renewable energy as a way to save costs.


title: Niger

text: Nigerien culture is marked by variation, evidence of the cultural crossroads which French colonialism formed into a unified state from the beginning of the 20th century. What is now Niger was created from four distinct cultural areas in the pre-colonial era: the Zarma and Songhai dominated the Niger River valley in the southwest; the northern periphery of Hausaland, made mostly of those states which had resisted the Sokoto Caliphate, and ranged along the long southern border with Nigeria; the Lake Chad basin and Kaouar in the far east, populated by Kanuri farmers and Toubou pastoralists who had once been part of the Kanem–Bornu Empire; and the Tuareg nomads of the Aïr Mountains and the Sahara in the vast north.


title: Niger

text: Each of these communities, along with smaller ethnic groups like the pastoral Wodaabe Fula, brought their own cultural traditions to the new state of Niger. While successive post-independence governments have tried to forge a shared national culture, this has been slow forming, in part because the major Nigerien communities have their own cultural histories, and in part because Nigerien ethnic groups such as the Hausa, Tuareg and Kanuri are but part of larger ethnic communities which cross borders introduced under colonialism.


title: Niger

text: Until the 1990s, government and politics was inordinately dominated by Niamey and the Zarma people of the surrounding region. At the same time the plurality of the population, in the Hausa borderlands between Birni-N'Konni and Maine-Soroa, have often looked culturally more to Hausaland in Nigeria than Niamey. Between 1996 and 2003, primary school attendance was around 30%, including 36% of males and only 25% of females. Additional education occurs through madrasas.


title: Niger

text: The Guérewol festival is a traditional Wodaabe cultural event that takes place in Abalak in Tahoua region or In'Gall in Agadez Region. It is an annual traditional courtship ritual practiced by the Wodaabe (Fula) people of Niger. During this ceremony, young men dressed in elaborate ornamentation and made up in traditional face painting gather in lines to dance and sing, vying for the attention of marriageable young women. The Guérewol festival is an international attraction and was featured in films and magazines as prominent as the National Geographic.


title: Niger

text: "La Cure salée" (English: Salt Cure) is a yearly festival of Tuareg and Wodaabe nomads in In'Gall in Agadez Region traditionally to celebrate the end of the rainy season. For three days, the festival features a parade of Tuareg camel riders followed with camel and horse races, songs, dances, and storytelling.


title: Niger

text: Niger began developing diverse media in the late 1990s. Prior to the Third Republic, Nigeriens only had access to tightly controlled state media. Now Niamey contains scores of newspapers and magazines; some, like "Le Sahel", are government operated, while many are critical of the government. Radio is the most important medium, as television sets are beyond the buying power of many of the rural poor, and illiteracy prevents print media from becoming a mass medium.


title: Niger

text: In addition to the national and regional radio services of the state broadcaster ORTN, there are four privately owned radio networks which total more than 100 stations. Three of them—the Anfani Group, Sarounia and Tenere—are urban-based commercial-format FM networks in the major towns. There is also a network of over 80 community radio stations spread across all seven regions of the country, governed by the Comité de Pilotage de Radios de Proximité (CPRP), a civil society organisation. The independent-sector radio networks are collectively estimated by CPRP officials to cover some 7.6 million people, or about 73% of the population (2005).


title: Niger

text: Aside from Nigerien radio stations, the BBC's Hausa service is listened to on FM repeaters across wide parts of the country, particularly in the south, close to the border with Nigeria. Radio France Internationale also rebroadcasts in French through some of the commercial stations, via satellite. Tenere FM also runs a national independent television station of the same name.


title: Niger

text: Despite relative freedom at the national level, Nigerien journalists say they are often pressured by local authorities. The state ORTN network depends financially on the government, partly through a surcharge on electricity bills, and partly through direct subsidy. The sector is governed by the Conseil Supérieur de Communications, established as an independent body in the early 1990s, since 2007 headed by Daouda Diallo. International human rights groups have criticised the government since at least 1996 as using regulation and police to punish criticism of the state.


title: Raccoon

text: The raccoon ( or , Procyon lotor), sometimes called the common raccoon to distinguish it from other species, is a mammal native to North America. It is the largest of the procyonid family, having a body length of , and a body weight of . Its grayish coat mostly consists of dense underfur, which insulates it against cold weather. Three of the raccoon's most distinctive features are its extremely dexterous front paws, its facial mask, and its ringed tail, which are themes in the mythologies of the indigenous peoples of the Americas relating to the animal. The raccoon is noted for its intelligence, as studies show that it is able to remember the solution to tasks for at least three years. It is usually nocturnal and omnivorous, eating about 40% invertebrates, 33% plants, and 27% vertebrates.


title: Raccoon

text: The original habitats of the raccoon are deciduous and mixed forests, but due to their adaptability, they have extended their range to mountainous areas, coastal marshes, and urban areas, where some homeowners consider them to be pests. As a result of escapes and deliberate introductions in the mid-20th century, raccoons are now also distributed across central Europe, the Caucasus, and Japan.


title: Raccoon

text: In Europe, the raccoon is included since 2016 in the list of Invasive Alien Species of Union concern (the Union list). This implies that this species cannot be imported, bred, transported, commercialized, or intentionally released into the environment in the whole of the European Union.


title: Raccoon

text: Though previously thought to be generally solitary, there is now evidence that raccoons engage in sex-specific social behavior. Related females often share a common area, while unrelated males live together in groups of up to four raccoons in order to maintain their positions against foreign males during the mating season and against other potential invaders. Home range sizes vary anywhere from for females in cities, to for males in prairies. After a gestation period of about 65 days, two to five young known as "kits" are born in spring. The kits are subsequently raised by their mother until dispersal in late fall. Although captive raccoons have been known to live over 20 years, their life expectancy in the wild is only 1.8 to 3.1 years. In many areas, hunting and vehicular injury are the two most common causes of death.


title: Raccoon

text: Names for the species include the common raccoon, North American raccoon, and northern raccoon, The word "raccoon" was adopted into English from the native Powhatan term meaning "animal that scratches with its hands", as used in the Colony of Virginia. Its Latin name means "before-dog washer". It was recorded on John Smith's list of Powhatan words as "aroughcun", and on that of William Strachey as "arathkone". It has also been identified as a reflex of a Proto-Algonquian root "ahrah-koon-em", meaning "[the] one who rubs, scrubs and scratches with its hands". The word is sometimes spelled as racoon.


title: Raccoon

text: Spanish colonists adopted the Spanish word from the Nahuatl of the Aztecs, meaning "[the] one who takes everything in its hands".


title: Raccoon

text: The colloquial abbreviation "coon" is used in words like "coonskin" for fur clothing and in phrases like "old coon" as a self-designation of trappers. In the 1830s, the United States Whig Party used the raccoon as an emblem, causing them to be pejoratively known as "coons" by their political opponents, who saw them as too sympathetic to African-Americans. Soon after that the term became an ethnic slur, especially in use between 1880 and 1920 (see "coon song"), and the term is still considered offensive. Dogs bred to hunt raccoons are called "coonhound" and "coon dog".


title: Raccoon

text: In the first decades after its discovery by the members of the expedition of Christopher Columbus, who were the first Europeans to leave a written record about the species, taxonomists thought the raccoon was related to many different species, including dogs, cats, badgers and particularly bears. Carl Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy, placed the raccoon in the genus "Ursus", first as "Ursus cauda elongata" ("long-tailed bear") in the second edition of his "Systema Naturae" (1740), then as "Ursus Lotor" ("washer bear") in the tenth edition (1758–59). In 1780, Gottlieb Conrad Christian Storr placed the raccoon in its own genus "Procyon", which can be translated as either "before the dog" or "doglike". It is also possible that Storr had its nocturnal lifestyle in mind and chose the star Procyon as eponym for the species.


title: Raccoon

text: Based on fossil evidence from Russia and Bulgaria, the first known members of the family Procyonidae lived in Europe in the late Oligocene about 25 million years ago. Similar tooth and skull structures suggest procyonids and weasels share a common ancestor, but molecular analysis indicates a closer relationship between raccoons and bears. After the then-existing species crossed the Bering Strait at least six million years later in the early Miocene, the center of its distribution was probably in Central America. Coatis ("Nasua" and "Nasuella") and raccoons ("Procyon") have been considered to share common descent from a species in the genus "Paranasua" present between 5.2 and 6.0 million years ago. This assumption, based on morphological comparisons of fossils, conflicts with a 2006 genetic analysis which indicates raccoons are more closely related to ringtails. Unlike other procyonids, such as the crab-eating raccoon ("Procyon cancrivorus"), the ancestors of the common raccoon left tropical and subtropical areas and migrated farther north about 2.5 million years ago, in a migration that has been confirmed by the discovery of fossils in the Great Plains dating back to the middle of the Pliocene. Its most recent ancestor was likely "Procyon rexroadensis", a large Blancan raccoon from the Rexroad Formation characterized by its narrow back teeth and large lower jaw.


title: Raccoon

text: As of 2005, "Mammal Species of the World" recognizes 22 subspecies of raccoons. Four of these subspecies living only on small Central American and Caribbean islands were often regarded as distinct species after their discovery. These are the Bahamian raccoon and Guadeloupe raccoon, which are very similar to each other; the Tres Marias raccoon, which is larger than average and has an angular skull; and the extinct Barbados raccoon. Studies of their morphological and genetic traits in 1999, 2003 and 2005 led all these island raccoons to be listed as subspecies of the common raccoon in "Mammal Species of the World's" third edition. A fifth island raccoon population, the Cozumel raccoon, which weighs only and has notably small teeth, is still regarded as a separate species.


title: Raccoon

text: The four smallest raccoon subspecies, with a typical weight of , live along the southern coast of Florida and on the adjacent islands; an example is the Ten Thousand Islands raccoon ("Procyon lotor marinus"). Most of the other 15 subspecies differ only slightly from each other in coat color, size and other physical characteristics. The two most widespread subspecies are the eastern raccoon ("Procyon lotor lotor") and the Upper Mississippi Valley raccoon ("Procyon lotor hirtus"). Both share a comparatively dark coat with long hairs, but the Upper Mississippi Valley raccoon is larger than the eastern raccoon. The eastern raccoon occurs in all U.S. states and Canadian provinces to the north of South Carolina and Tennessee. The adjacent range of the Upper Mississippi Valley raccoon covers all U.S. states and Canadian provinces to the north of Louisiana, Texas and New Mexico.


title: Raccoon

text: The taxonomic identity of feral raccoons inhabiting Central Europe, Causasia and Japan is unknown, as the founding populations consisted of uncategorized specimens from zoos and fur farms.


title: Raccoon

text: Head to hindquarters, raccoons measure between , not including the bushy tail which can measure between , but is usually not much longer than . The shoulder height is between . The body weight of an adult raccoon varies considerably with habitat, making the raccoon one of the most variably sized mammals. It can range from , but is usually between . The smallest specimens live in southern Florida, while those near the northern limits of the raccoon's range tend to be the largest (see Bergmann's rule). Males are usually 15 to 20% heavier than females. At the beginning of winter, a raccoon can weigh twice as much as in spring because of fat storage. The largest recorded wild raccoon weighed and measured in total length, by far the largest size recorded for a procyonid.


title: Raccoon

text: The most characteristic physical feature of the raccoon is the area of black fur around the eyes, which contrasts sharply with the surrounding white face coloring. This is reminiscent of a "bandit's mask" and has thus enhanced the animal's reputation for mischief. The slightly rounded ears are also bordered by white fur. Raccoons are assumed to recognize the facial expression and posture of other members of their species more quickly because of the conspicuous facial coloration and the alternating light and dark rings on the tail. The dark mask may also reduce glare and thus enhance night vision. On other parts of the body, the long and stiff guard hairs, which shed moisture, are usually colored in shades of gray and, to a lesser extent, brown. Raccoons with a very dark coat are more common in the German population because individuals with such coloring were among those initially released to the wild. The dense underfur, which accounts for almost 90% of the coat, insulates against cold weather and is composed of long hairs.


title: Raccoon

text: The raccoon, whose method of locomotion is usually considered to be plantigrade, can stand on its hind legs to examine objects with its front paws. As raccoons have short legs compared to their compact torso, they are usually not able either to run quickly or jump great distances. Their top speed over short distances is . Raccoons can swim with an average speed of about and can stay in the water for several hours. For climbing down a tree headfirst—an unusual ability for a mammal of its size—a raccoon rotates its hind feet so they are pointing backwards. Raccoons have a dual cooling system to regulate their temperature; that is, they are able to both sweat and pant for heat dissipation.


title: Raccoon

text: Raccoon skulls have a short and wide facial region and a voluminous braincase. The facial length of the skull is less than the cranial, and their nasal bones are short and quite broad. The auditory bullae are inflated in form, and the sagittal crest is weakly developed. The dentition—40 teeth with the dental formula:—is adapted to their omnivorous diet: the carnassials are not as sharp and pointed as those of a full-time carnivore, but the molars are not as wide as those of a herbivore. The penis bone of males is about long and strongly bent at the front end, and its shape can be used to distinguish juvenile males from mature males. Seven of the thirteen identified vocal calls are used in communication between the mother and her kits, one of these being the birdlike twittering of newborns.


title: Raccoon

text: The most important sense for the raccoon is its sense of touch. The "hyper sensitive" front paws are protected by a thin horny layer that becomes pliable when wet. The five digits of the paws have no webbing between them, which is unusual for a carnivoran. Almost two-thirds of the area responsible for sensory perception in the raccoon's cerebral cortex is specialized for the interpretation of tactile impulses, more than in any other studied animal. They are able to identify objects before touching them with vibrissae located above their sharp, nonretractable claws. The raccoon's paws lack an opposable thumb; thus, it does not have the agility of the hands of primates. There is no observed negative effect on tactile perception when a raccoon stands in water below 10 °C (50 °F) for hours.


title: Raccoon

text: Raccoons are thought to be color blind or at least poorly able to distinguish color, though their eyes are well-adapted for sensing green light. Although their accommodation of 11 dioptre is comparable to that of humans and they see well in twilight because of the tapetum lucidum behind the retina, visual perception is of subordinate importance to raccoons because of their poor long-distance vision. In addition to being useful for orientation in the dark, their sense of smell is important for intraspecific communication. Glandular secretions (usually from their anal glands), urine and feces are used for marking. With their broad auditory range, they can perceive tones up to 50–85 kHz as well as quiet noises, like those produced by earthworms underground.


title: Raccoon

text: Zoologist Clinton Hart Merriam described raccoons as "clever beasts", and that "in certain directions their cunning surpasses that of the fox". The animal's intelligence gave rise to the epithet "sly coon". Only a few studies have been undertaken to determine the mental abilities of raccoons, most of them based on the animal's sense of touch. In a study by the ethologist H. B. Davis in 1908, raccoons were able to open 11 of 13 complex locks in fewer than 10 tries and had no problems repeating the action when the locks were rearranged or turned upside down. Davis concluded that they understood the abstract principles of the locking mechanisms and their learning speed was equivalent to that of rhesus macaques.


title: Raccoon

text: Studies in 1963, 1973, 1975 and 1992 concentrated on raccoon memory showed that they can remember the solutions to tasks for at least three years. In a study by B. Pohl in 1992, raccoons were able to instantly differentiate between identical and different symbols three years after the short initial learning phase. Stanislas Dehaene reports in his book "The Number Sense" that raccoons can distinguish boxes containing two or four grapes from those containing three. In research by Suzana Herculano-Houzel and other neuroscientists, raccoons have been found to be comparable to primates in density of neurons in the cerebral cortex, which they have proposed to be a neuroanatomical indicator of intelligence.


title: Raccoon

text: Studies in the 1990s by the ethologists Stanley D. Gehrt and Ulf Hohmann suggest that raccoons engage in sex-specific social behaviors and are not typically solitary, as was previously thought. Related females often live in a so-called "fission-fusion society"; that is, they share a common area and occasionally meet at feeding or resting grounds. Unrelated males often form loose male social groups to maintain their position against foreign males during the mating season—or against other potential invaders. Such a group does not usually consist of more than four individuals. Since some males show aggressive behavior towards unrelated kits, mothers will isolate themselves from other raccoons until their kits are big enough to defend themselves.


title: Raccoon

text: With respect to these three different modes of life prevalent among raccoons, Hohmann called their social structure a "three-class society". Samuel I. Zeveloff, professor of zoology at Weber State University and author of the book "Raccoons: A Natural History", is more cautious in his interpretation and concludes at least the females are solitary most of the time and, according to Erik K. Fritzell's study in North Dakota in 1978, males in areas with low population densities are solitary as well.


title: Raccoon

text: The shape and size of a raccoon's home range varies depending on age, sex, and habitat, with adults claiming areas more than twice as large as juveniles. While the size of home ranges in the habitat of North Dakota's prairies lie between for males and between for females, the average size in a marsh at Lake Erie was . Irrespective of whether the home ranges of adjacent groups overlap, they are most likely not actively defended outside the mating season if food supplies are sufficient. Odor marks on prominent spots are assumed to establish home ranges and identify individuals. Urine and feces left at shared raccoon latrines may provide additional information about feeding grounds, since raccoons were observed to meet there later for collective eating, sleeping and playing.


title: Raccoon

text: Concerning the general behavior patterns of raccoons, Gehrt points out that "typically you'll find 10 to 15 percent that will do the opposite" of what is expected.


title: Raccoon

text: Though usually nocturnal, the raccoon is sometimes active in daylight to take advantage of available food sources. Its diet consists of about 40% invertebrates, 33% plant material and 27% vertebrates. Since its diet consists of such a variety of different foods, Zeveloff argues the raccoon "may well be one of the world's most omnivorous animals". While its diet in spring and early summer consists mostly of insects, worms, and other animals already available early in the year, it prefers fruits and nuts, such as acorns and walnuts, which emerge in late summer and autumn, and represent a rich calorie source for building up fat needed for winter.


title: Raccoon

text: Contrary to popular belief, raccoons only occasionally eat active or large prey, such as birds and mammals. They prefer prey that is easier to catch, specifically crayfish, insects, fish, amphibians and bird eggs. Raccoons are virulent predators of eggs and hatchlings in both birds and reptile nests, to such a degree that, for threatened prey species, raccoons may need to be removed from the area or nests may need to be relocated to mitigate the effect of their predations (i.e. in the case of some globally threatened turtles). When food is plentiful, raccoons can develop strong individual preferences for specific foods. In the northern parts of their range, raccoons go into a winter rest, reducing their activity drastically as long as a permanent snow cover makes searching for food difficult.


title: Raccoon

text: One aspect of raccoon behavior is so well known that it gives the animal part of its scientific name, "Procyon lotor"; "lotor" is Latin for "washer". In the wild, raccoons often dabble for underwater food near the shore-line. They then often pick up the food item with their front paws to examine it and rub the item, sometimes to remove unwanted parts. This gives the appearance of the raccoon "washing" the food. The tactile sensitivity of raccoons' paws is increased if this rubbing action is performed underwater, since the water softens the hard layer covering the paws. However, the behavior observed in captive raccoons in which they carry their food to water to "wash" or douse it before eating has not been observed in the wild. Naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, believed that raccoons do not have adequate saliva production to moisten food thereby necessitating dousing, but this hypothesis is now considered to be incorrect. Captive raccoons douse their food more frequently when a watering hole with a layout similar to a stream is not farther away than . The widely accepted theory is that dousing in captive raccoons is a fixed action pattern from the dabbling behavior performed when foraging at shores for aquatic foods. This is supported by the observation that aquatic foods are doused more frequently. Cleaning dirty food does not seem to be a reason for "washing".


title: Raccoon

text: Raccoons usually mate in a period triggered by increasing daylight between late January and mid-March. However, there are large regional differences which are not completely explicable by solar conditions. For example, while raccoons in southern states typically mate later than average, the mating season in Manitoba also peaks later than usual in March and extends until June. During the mating season, males restlessly roam their home ranges in search of females in an attempt to court them during the three- to four-day period when conception is possible. These encounters will often occur at central meeting places. Copulation, including foreplay, can last over an hour and is repeated over several nights. The weaker members of a "male social group" also are assumed to get the opportunity to mate, since the stronger ones cannot mate with all available females. In a study in southern Texas during the mating seasons from 1990 to 1992, about one third of all females mated with more than one male. If a female does not become pregnant or if she loses her kits early, she will sometimes become fertile again 80 to 140 days later.


title: Raccoon

text: After usually 63 to 65 days of gestation (although anywhere from 54 to 70 days is possible), a litter of typically two to five young is born. The average litter size varies widely with habitat, ranging from 2.5 in Alabama to 4.8 in North Dakota. Larger litters are more common in areas with a high mortality rate, due, for example, to hunting or severe winters. While male yearlings usually reach their sexual maturity only after the main mating season, female yearlings can compensate for high mortality rates and may be responsible for about 50% of all young born in a year. Males have no part in raising young. The kits (also called "cubs") are blind and deaf at birth, but their mask is already visible against their light fur. The birth weight of the about -long kits is between . Their ear canals open after around 18 to 23 days, a few days before their eyes open for the first time. Once the kits weigh about , they begin to explore outside the den, consuming solid food for the first time after six to nine weeks. After this point, their mother suckles them with decreasing frequency; they are usually weaned by 16 weeks. In the fall, after their mother has shown them dens and feeding grounds, the juvenile group splits up. While many females will stay close to the home range of their mother, males can sometimes move more than away. This is considered an instinctive behavior, preventing inbreeding. However, mother and offspring may share a den during the first winter in cold areas.


title: Raccoon

text: Captive raccoons have been known to live for more than 20 years. However, the species' life expectancy in the wild is only 1.8 to 3.1 years, depending on the local conditions such as traffic volume, hunting, and weather severity. It is not unusual for only half of the young born in one year to survive a full year. After this point, the annual mortality rate drops to between 10% and 30%. Young raccoons are vulnerable to losing their mother and to starvation, particularly in long and cold winters. The most frequent natural cause of death in the North American raccoon population is distemper, which can reach epidemic proportions and kill most of a local raccoon population. In areas with heavy vehicular traffic and extensive hunting, these factors can account for up to 90% of all deaths of adult raccoons. The most important natural predators of the raccoon are bobcats, coyotes, and great horned owls, the latter mainly preying on young raccoons but capable of killing adults in some cases. In Florida, they have been reported to fall victim to larger carnivores like American black bear and cougars and these species may also be a threat on occasion in other areas. Where still present, gray wolves may still occasionally take raccoons as a supplemental prey item. Also in the southeast, they are among the favored prey for adult American alligators. On occasion, both bald and golden eagles will prey on raccoons. In the tropics, raccoons are known to fall prey to smaller eagles such as ornate hawk-eagles and black hawk-eagles, although it is not clear whether adults or merely juvenile raccoons are taken by these. In rare cases of overlap, they may fall victim from carnivores ranging from species averaging smaller than themselves such as fishers to those as large and formidable as jaguars in Mexico. In their introduced range in the former Soviet Union, their main predators are wolves, lynxes and Eurasian eagle-owls. However, predation is not a significant cause of death, especially because larger predators have been exterminated in many areas inhabited by raccoons.


title: Raccoon

text: Although they have thrived in sparsely wooded areas in the last decades, raccoons depend on vertical structures to climb when they feel threatened. Therefore, they avoid open terrain and areas with high concentrations of beech trees, as beech bark is too smooth to climb. Tree hollows in old oaks or other trees and rock crevices are preferred by raccoons as sleeping, winter and litter dens. If such dens are unavailable or accessing them is inconvenient, raccoons use burrows dug by other mammals, dense undergrowth or tree crotches. In a study in the Solling range of hills in Germany, more than 60% of all sleeping places were used only once, but those used at least ten times accounted for about 70% of all uses. Since amphibians, crustaceans, and other animals around the shore of lakes and rivers are an important part of the raccoon's diet, lowland deciduous or mixed forests abundant with water and marshes sustain the highest population densities. While population densities range from 0.5 to 3.2 animals per square kilometer (1.3 to 8.3 animals per square mile) in prairies and do not usually exceed 6 animals per square kilometer (15.5 animals per square mile) in upland hardwood forests, more than 20 raccoons per square kilometer (51.8 animals per square mile) can live in lowland forests and marshes.


title: Raccoon

text: Raccoons are common throughout North America from Canada to Panama, where the subspecies "Procyon lotor pumilus" coexists with the crab-eating raccoon ("Procyon cancrivorus"). The population on Hispaniola was exterminated as early as 1513 by Spanish colonists who hunted them for their meat. Raccoons were also exterminated in Cuba and Jamaica, where the last sightings were reported in 1687. The Barbados raccoon became extinct relatively recently, in 1964. When they were still considered separate species, the Bahamas raccoon, Guadeloupe raccoon and Tres Marias raccoon were classified as endangered by the IUCN in 1996.


title: Raccoon

text: There is archeological evidence that in pre-Columbian times raccoons were numerous only along rivers and in the woodlands of the Southeastern United States. As raccoons were not mentioned in earlier reports of pioneers exploring the central and north-central parts of the United States, their initial spread may have begun a few decades before the 20th century. Since the 1950s, raccoons have expanded their range from Vancouver Island—formerly the northernmost limit of their range—far into the northern portions of the four south-central Canadian provinces. New habitats which have recently been occupied by raccoons (aside from urban areas) include mountain ranges, such as the Western Rocky Mountains, prairies and coastal marshes. After a population explosion starting in the 1940s, the estimated number of raccoons in North America in the late 1980s was 15 to 20 times higher than in the 1930s, when raccoons were comparatively rare. Urbanization, the expansion of agriculture, deliberate introductions, and the extermination of natural predators of the raccoon have probably caused this increase in abundance and distribution.


title: Raccoon

text: As a result of escapes and deliberate introductions in the mid-20th century, the raccoon is now distributed in several European and Asian countries. Sightings have occurred in all the countries bordering Germany, which hosts the largest population outside of North America. Another stable population exists in northern France, where several pet raccoons were released by members of the U.S. Air Force near the Laon-Couvron Air Base in 1966. Furthermore, raccoons have been known to be in the area around Madrid since the early 1970s. In 2013, the city authorized "the capture and death of any specimen". It is also present in Italy, with one reproductive population in Lombardy.


title: Raccoon

text: About 1,240 animals were released in nine regions of the former Soviet Union between 1936 and 1958 for the purpose of establishing a population to be hunted for their fur. Two of these introductions were successful—one in the south of Belarus between 1954 and 1958, and another in Azerbaijan between 1941 and 1957. With a seasonal harvest of between 1,000 and 1,500 animals, in 1974 the estimated size of the population distributed in the Caucasus region was around 20,000 animals and the density was four animals per square kilometer (10 animals per square mile).


title: Raccoon

text: In Japan, up to 1,500 raccoons were imported as pets each year after the success of the anime series "Rascal the Raccoon" (1977). In 2004, the descendants of discarded or escaped animals lived in 42 of 47 prefectures. The range of raccoons in the wild in Japan grew from 17 prefectures in 2000 to all 47 prefectures in 2008. It is estimated that raccoons cause thirty million yen (~$275,000) of agricultural damage on Hokkaido alone.


title: Raccoon

text: In Germany—where the raccoon is called the (literally, "wash-bear" or "washing bear") due to its habit of "dousing" food in water—two pairs of pet raccoons were released into the German countryside at the Edersee reservoir in the north of Hesse in April 1934 by a forester upon request of their owner, a poultry farmer. He released them two weeks before receiving permission from the Prussian hunting office to "enrich the fauna". Several prior attempts to introduce raccoons in Germany were not successful. A second population was established in eastern Germany in 1945 when 25 raccoons escaped from a fur farm at Wolfshagen (today district of Altlandsberg), east of Berlin, after an air strike. The two populations are parasitologically distinguishable: 70% of the raccoons of the Hessian population are infected with the roundworm "Baylisascaris procyonis", but none of the Brandenburgian population is known to have the parasite. In the Hessian region, there were an estimated 285 raccoons in 1956, which increased to over 20,000 in 1970; in 2008 there were between 200,000 and 400,000 raccoons in the whole of Germany. By 2012 it was estimated that Germany now had more than a million raccoons.


title: Raccoon

text: The raccoon was once a protected species in Germany, but has been declared a game animal in 14 of the 16 states since 1954. Hunters and environmentalists argue the raccoon spreads uncontrollably, threatens protected bird species and supersedes indigenous competitors. This view is opposed by the zoologist Frank-Uwe Michler, who finds no evidence that a high population density of raccoons leads to negative effects on the biodiversity of an area. Hohmann holds that extensive hunting cannot be justified by the absence of natural predators, because predation is not a significant cause of death in the North American raccoon population.


title: Raccoon

text: The raccoon is extensively hunted in Germany as it is seen as an invasive species and pest. In the 1990s, only about 400 raccoons were hunted yearly. This increased dramatically over the next quarter-century: during the 2015/16 hunting season, 128,100 raccoons were hunted, 60 percent of them in the state of Hesse.


title: Raccoon

text: Experiments in acclimatising raccoons into the USSR began in 1936, and were repeated a further 25 times until 1962. Overall, 1,222 individuals were released, 64 of which came from zoos and fur farms (38 of them having been imports from western Europe). The remainder originated from a population previously established in Transcaucasia. The range of Soviet raccoons was never single or continuous, as they were often introduced to different locations far from each other. All introductions into the Russian Far East failed; melanistic raccoons were released on Petrov Island near Vladivostok and some areas of southern Primorsky Krai, but died. In Middle Asia, raccoons were released in Kyrgyzstan's Jalal-Abad Province, though they were later recorded as "practically absent" there in January 1963. A large and stable raccoon population (yielding 1000–1500 catches a year) was established in Azerbaijan after an introduction to the area in 1937. Raccoons apparently survived an introduction near Terek, along the Sulak River into the Dagestani lowlands. Attempts to settle raccoons on the Kuban River's left tributary and Kabardino-Balkaria were unsuccessful. A successful acclimatization occurred in Belarus, where three introductions (consisting of 52, 37 and 38 individuals in 1954 and 1958) took place. By January 1, 1963, 700 individuals were recorded in the country.


title: Raccoon

text: Due to its adaptability, the raccoon has been able to use urban areas as a habitat. The first sightings were recorded in a suburb of Cincinnati in the 1920s. Since the 1950s, raccoons have been present in metropolitan areas like Washington, DC, Chicago, and Toronto. Since the 1960s, Kassel has hosted Europe's first and densest population in a large urban area, with about 50 to 150 animals per square kilometer (130 to 390 animals per square mile), a figure comparable to those of urban habitats in North America. Home range sizes of urban raccoons are only 3 to 40 hectares (7.5 to 100 acres) for females and 8 to 80 hectares (20 to 200 acres) for males. In small towns and suburbs, many raccoons sleep in a nearby forest after foraging in the settlement area. Fruit and insects in gardens and leftovers in municipal waste are easily available food sources. Furthermore, a large number of additional sleeping areas exist in these areas, such as hollows in old garden trees, cottages, garages, abandoned houses, and attics. The percentage of urban raccoons sleeping in abandoned or occupied houses varies from 15% in Washington, DC (1991) to 43% in Kassel (2003).


title: Raccoon

text: Raccoons can carry rabies, a lethal disease caused by the neurotropic rabies virus carried in the saliva and transmitted by bites. Its spread began in Florida and Georgia in the 1950s and was facilitated by the introduction of infected individuals to Virginia and North Dakota in the late 1970s. Of the 6,940 documented rabies cases reported in the United States in 2006, 2,615 (37.7%) were in raccoons. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, as well as local authorities in several U.S. states and Canadian provinces, has developed oral vaccination programs to fight the spread of the disease in endangered populations. Only one human fatality has been reported after transmission of the rabies virus strain commonly known as "raccoon rabies". Among the main symptoms for rabies in raccoons are a generally sickly appearance, impaired mobility, abnormal vocalization, and aggressiveness. There may be no visible signs at all, however, and most individuals do not show the aggressive behavior seen in infected canids; rabid raccoons will often retire to their dens instead. Organizations like the U.S. Forest Service encourage people to stay away from animals with unusual behavior or appearance, and to notify the proper authorities, such as an animal control officer from the local health department. Since healthy animals, especially nursing mothers, will occasionally forage during the day, daylight activity is not a reliable indicator of illness in raccoons.


title: Raccoon

text: Unlike rabies and at least a dozen other pathogens carried by raccoons, distemper, an epizootic virus, does not affect humans. This disease is the most frequent natural cause of death in the North American raccoon population and affects individuals of all age groups. For example, 94 of 145 raccoons died during an outbreak in Clifton, Ohio, in 1968. It may occur along with a following inflammation of the brain (encephalitis), causing the animal to display rabies-like symptoms. In Germany, the first eight cases of distemper were reported in 2007.


title: Raccoon

text: Some of the most important bacterial diseases which affect raccoons are leptospirosis, listeriosis, tetanus, and tularemia. Although internal parasites weaken their immune systems, well-fed individuals can carry a great many roundworms in their digestive tracts without showing symptoms. The larvae of the roundworm "Baylisascaris procyonis", which can be contained in the feces and seldom causes a severe illness in humans, can be ingested when cleaning raccoon latrines without wearing breathing protection.


title: Raccoon

text: While not endemic, the worm "Trichinella" does infect raccoons, and undercooked raccoon meat has caused trichinosis in humans.


title: Raccoon

text: The increasing number of raccoons in urban areas has resulted in diverse reactions in humans, ranging from outrage at their presence to deliberate feeding. Some wildlife experts and most public authorities caution against feeding wild animals because they might become increasingly obtrusive and dependent on humans as a food source. Other experts challenge such arguments and give advice on feeding raccoons and other wildlife in their books. Raccoons without a fear of humans are a concern to those who attribute this trait to rabies, but scientists point out this behavior is much more likely to be a behavioral adjustment to living in habitats with regular contact to humans for many generations. Raccoons usually do not prey on domestic cats and dogs, but isolated cases of killings have been reported. Attacks on pets may also target their owners.


title: Raccoon

text: While overturned waste containers and raided fruit trees are just a nuisance to homeowners, it can cost several thousand dollars to repair damage caused by the use of attic space as dens. Relocating or killing raccoons without a permit is forbidden in many urban areas on grounds of animal welfare. These methods usually only solve problems with particularly wild or aggressive individuals, since adequate dens are either known to several raccoons or will quickly be rediscovered. Loud noises, flashing lights, and unpleasant odors have proven particularly effective in driving away a mother and her kits before they would normally leave the nesting place (when the kits are about eight weeks old). Typically, though, only precautionary measures to restrict access to food waste and den sites are effective in the long term.


title: Raccoon

text: Among all fruits and crops cultivated in agricultural areas, sweet corn in its milk stage is particularly popular among raccoons. In a two-year study by Purdue University researchers, published in 2004, raccoons were responsible for 87% of the damage to corn plants. Like other predators, raccoons searching for food can break into poultry houses to feed on chickens, ducks, their eggs, or food.


title: Raccoon

text: In the mythology of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, the raccoon is the subject of folk tales. Stories such as "How raccoons catch so many crayfish" from the Tuscarora centered on its skills at foraging. In other tales, the raccoon played the role of the trickster which outsmarts other animals, like coyotes and wolves. Among others, the Dakota believe the raccoon has natural spirit powers, since its mask resembles the facial paintings, two-fingered swashes of black and white, used during rituals to connect to spirit beings. The Aztecs linked supernatural abilities especially to females, whose commitment to their young was associated with the role of wise women in their society.


title: Raccoon

text: The raccoon also appears in Native American art across a wide geographic range. Petroglyphs with engraved raccoon tracks were found in Lewis Canyon, Texas; at the Crow Hollow petroglyph site in Grayson County, Kentucky; and in river drainages near Tularosa, the San Francisco River of New Mexico and Arizona. The meaning and significance of the "Raccoon Priests Gorget", which features a stylized carving of a raccoon and was found at the Spiro Mounds, Oklahoma, remains unknown.


title: Raccoon

text: The fur of raccoons is used for clothing, especially for coats and coonskin caps. At present, it is the material used for the inaccurately named "sealskin" cap worn by the Royal Fusiliers of Great Britain. Sporrans made of raccoon pelt and hide have sometimes been used as part of traditional Scottish highland men's apparel since the 18th century, especially in North America. Such sporrans may or may not be of the "full-mask" type. Historically, Native American tribes not only used the fur for winter clothing, but also used the tails for ornament. The famous Sioux leader Spotted Tail took his name from a raccoon skin hat with the tail attached he acquired from a fur trader. Since the late 18th century, various types of scent hounds, called "coonhounds", which are able to tree animals have been bred in the United States. In the 19th century, when coonskins occasionally even served as means of payment, several thousand raccoons were killed each year in the United States. This number rose quickly when automobile coats became popular after the turn of the 20th century. In the 1920s, wearing a raccoon coat was regarded as status symbol among college students. Attempts to breed raccoons in fur farms in the 1920s and 1930s in North America and Europe turned out not to be profitable, and farming was abandoned after prices for long-haired pelts dropped in the 1940s. Although raccoons had become rare in the 1930s, at least 388,000 were killed during the hunting season of 1934/35.


title: Raccoon

text: After persistent population increases began in the 1940s, the seasonal coon hunting harvest reached about one million animals in 1946/47 and two million in 1962/63. The broadcast of three television episodes about the frontiersman Davy Crockett and the film "Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier" in 1954 and 1955 led to a high demand for coonskin caps in the United States, although it is unlikely either Crockett or the actor who played him, Fess Parker, actually wore a cap made from raccoon fur. The seasonal hunt reached an all-time high with 5.2 million animals in 1976/77 and ranged between 3.2 and 4.7 million for most of the 1980s. In 1982, the average pelt price was $20. As of 1987, the raccoon was identified as the most important wild furbearer in North America in terms of revenue. In the first half of the 1990s, the seasonal hunt dropped to 0.9 from 1.9 million due to decreasing pelt prices.


title: Raccoon

text: While primarily hunted for their fur, raccoons were also a source of food for Native Americans and early American settlers. According to Ernest Thompson Seton, young specimens killed without a fight are palatable, whereas old raccoons caught after a lengthy battle are inedible. Raccoon meat was extensively eaten during the early years of California, where it was sold in the San Francisco market for $1–3 apiece. American slaves occasionally ate raccoon at Christmas, but it was not necessarily a dish of the poor or rural. The first edition of "The Joy of Cooking", released in 1931, contained a recipe for preparing raccoon, and US President Calvin Coolidge's pet raccoon Rebecca was originally sent to be served at the White House Thanksgiving Dinner.


title: Raccoon

text: Although the idea of eating raccoons may seem repulsive to most mainstream consumers, who see them as endearing, cute, or vermin, several thousand raccoons are still eaten each year in the United States, primarily in the Southern United States. Some people tout the taste of the meat.


title: Raccoon

text: Raccoons are sometimes kept as pets, which is discouraged by many experts because the raccoon is not a domesticated species. Raccoons may act unpredictably and aggressively and it is extremely difficult to teach them to obey commands. In places where keeping raccoons as pets is not forbidden, such as in Wisconsin and other U.S. states, an exotic pet permit may be required. One notable pet raccoon was Rebecca, kept by US president Calvin Coolidge.


title: Raccoon

text: Their propensity for unruly behavior exceeds that of captive skunks, and they are even less trustworthy when allowed to roam freely. Because of their intelligence and nimble forelimbs, even inexperienced raccoons are easily capable of unscrewing jars, uncorking bottles and opening door latches, with more experienced specimens having been recorded to open door knobs. Sexually mature raccoons often show aggressive natural behaviors such as biting during the mating season. Neutering them at around five or six months of age decreases the chances of aggressive behavior developing. Raccoons can become obese and suffer from other disorders due to poor diet and lack of exercise. When fed with cat food over a long time period, raccoons can develop gout. With respect to the research results regarding their social behavior, it is now required by law in Austria and Germany to keep at least two individuals to prevent loneliness. Raccoons are usually kept in a pen (indoor or outdoor), also a legal requirement in Austria and Germany, rather than in the apartment where their natural curiosity may result in damage to property.


title: Raccoon

text: When orphaned, it is possible for kits to be rehabilitated and reintroduced to the wild. However, it is uncertain whether they readapt well to life in the wild. Feeding unweaned kits with cow's milk rather than a kitten replacement milk or a similar product can be dangerous to their health.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a 1974 American slasher film produced and directed by Tobe Hooper from a story and screenplay by Hooper and Kim Henkel. It stars Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow and Gunnar Hansen, who respectively portray Sally Hardesty, Franklin Hardesty, the hitchhiker, the proprietor, and Leatherface. The film follows a group of friends who fall victim to a family of cannibals while on their way to visit an old homestead. The film was marketed as being based on true events to attract a wider audience and to act as a subtle commentary on the era's political climate. Although the character of Leatherface and minor story details were inspired by the crimes of murderer Ed Gein, its plot is largely fictional. It is the first film of the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" franchise.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: Hooper produced the film for less than $140,000 ($ adjusted for inflation) and used a cast of relatively unknown actors drawn mainly from central Texas, where the film was shot. The limited budget forced Hooper to film for long hours seven days a week, so that he could finish as quickly as possible and reduce equipment rental costs. Due to the film's violent content, Hooper struggled to find a distributor, but it was eventually acquired by Louis Perano of Bryanston Distributing Company. Hooper limited the quantity of onscreen gore in hopes of securing a PG rating, but the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) rated it R. The film faced similar difficulties internationally.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" was banned in several countries, and numerous theaters stopped showing the film in response to complaints about its violence. While it initially drew a mixed reception from critics, it was highly profitable, grossing over $30 million at the domestic box office, equivalent with roughly over $150.8 million as of 2019, selling over 16.5 million tickets in 1974. It has since gained a reputation as one of the best and most influential horror films. It is credited with originating several elements common in the slasher genre, including the use of power tools as murder weapons, the characterization of the killer as a large, hulking, faceless figure, and the killing of victims. It led to a franchise that continued the story of Leatherface and his family through sequels, prequels, a remake, comic books and video games.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: In the early hours of August 18, 1973, a grave robber steals several remains from a cemetery near Newt, Muerto County, Texas. The robber ties a rotting corpse and other body parts onto a monument, creating a grisly display which is discovered by a local resident as the sun rises.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: Driving in a van, five young people take a road trip through the area: Sally Hardesty, Jerry, Pam, Kirk, and Sally's handicapped brother Franklin. They stop at the cemetery to check on the grave of Sally and Franklin's grandfather, which appears undisturbed. As the group drive past a slaughterhouse, Franklin recounts the Hardesty family's history with animal slaughter. They pick up a hitchhiker who says that his own family also has experience with animal slaughter. When the group refuse to pay the hitchhiker for a photograph, he attacks Franklin and smears a bloody symbol on the side of the van as he is ejected. Low on gas, the van stops at a station whose proprietor says that no fuel is available. The group explore a nearby abandoned house, owned by the Hardesty family.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: Kirk and Pam leave the others behind, planning to have sex. They discover another nearby house, running gas-powered generators. Hoping to barter for gas, Kirk enters the house. A large man wearing a mask made of skin attacks Kirk with a hammer, killing him. When Pam enters the house, she finds its living room strewn with human and animal bones. The man grabs her, impales her on a meat hook, and starts up a gas-powered chainsaw to dismember Kirk's body as Pam watches. In the evening, Jerry searches for Pam and Kirk. When he enters the other house, he finds Pam's nearly-dead, spasming body in a chest freezer. The masked man kills Jerry with a hammer.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: At night, Sally and Franklin start towards the other house. The masked man ambushes them, killing Franklin with the chainsaw. The man chases Sally into the house, where she finds a very old, seemingly dead man and a woman's rotting corpse. The man chases Sally back to the gas station and vanishes. The station's proprietor comforts Sally for a moment, after which he beats and subdues her, loading her into his pickup truck. The proprietor drives to the other house, and the hitchhiker appears. The proprietor scolds him for his actions at the cemetery, identifying the hitchhiker as the grave robber. As they enter the house, the masked man reappears, dressed in women's clothing. The proprietor identifies the masked man and the hitchhiker as brothers, and the hitchhiker refers to the masked man as "Leatherface". The two brothers bring the old man—"Grandpa"—down the stairs and cut Sally's finger so that Grandpa can suck her blood. Sally faints.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: The next morning, Sally regains consciousness. The men taunt her and bicker with each other, resolving to kill her with a hammer. They try to include Grandpa in the activity, but Grandpa's grip is weak, and he drops the hammer repeatedly. Sally breaks free and runs onto a road in front of the house, pursued by the brothers. An oncoming truck accidentally runs over the hitchhiker, killing him. The truck driver attacks Leatherface with a large wrench, injuring him, and escapes on foot. Sally, covered in blood, flags down a passing pickup truck and climbs into the bed, narrowly escaping Leatherface. As the pickup drives away, Sally laughs giddily. Leatherface flails his chainsaw in frustration as the sun rises.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: The concept for "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" arose in the early 1970s while Tobe Hooper was working as an assistant film director at the University of Texas at Austin and as a documentary cameraman. He had already developed a story involving the elements of isolation, the woods, and darkness. He credited the graphic coverage of violence by San Antonio news outlets as one inspiration for the film and based elements of the plot on murderer Ed Gein, who committed his crimes in 1950s Wisconsin; Gein inspired other horror films such as "Psycho" (1960) and "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991). During development, Hooper used the working titles of "Headcheese" and "Leatherface".


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: Hooper has cited changes in the cultural and political landscape as central influences on the film. His intentional misinformation, that the "film you are about to see is true", was a response to being "lied to by the government about things that were going on all over the world", including Watergate, the 1973 oil crisis, and "the massacres and atrocities in the Vietnam War". The "lack of sentimentality and the brutality of things" that Hooper noticed while watching the local news, whose graphic coverage was epitomized by "showing brains spilled all over the road", led to his belief that "man was the real monster here, just wearing a different face, so I put a literal mask on the monster in my film". The idea of using a chainsaw as the murder weapon came to Hooper while he was in the hardware section of a busy store, contemplating how to speed his way through the crowd.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: Hooper and Kim Henkel cowrote the screenplay and formed Vortex, Inc. with Henkel as president and Hooper as vice president. They asked Bill Parsley, a friend of Hooper, to provide funding. Parsley formed a company named MAB, Inc. through which he invested $60,000 in the production. In return, MAB owned 50% of the film and its profits. Production manager Ron Bozman told most of the cast and crew that he would have to defer part of their salaries until after it was sold to a distributor. Vortex made the idea more attractive by awarding them a share of its potential profits, ranging from 0.25 to 6%, similar to mortgage points. The cast and crew were not informed that Vortex owned only 50%, which meant their points were worth half of the assumed value.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: Many of the cast members at the time were relatively unknown actors—Texans who had played roles in commercials, television, and stage shows, as well as performers whom Hooper knew personally, such as Allen Danziger and Jim Siedow. Involvement in the film propelled some of them into the motion picture industry. The lead role of Sally was given to Marilyn Burns, who had appeared previously on stage and served on the film commission board at UT Austin while studying there. Teri McMinn was a student who worked with local theater companies, including the Dallas Theater Center. Henkel called McMinn to come in for a reading after he spotted her picture in the "Austin American-Statesman". For her last call-back he requested that she wear short shorts, which proved to be the most comfortable of all the cast members' costumes.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: Icelandic-American actor Gunnar Hansen was selected for the role of Leatherface. He regarded Leatherface as having an intellectual disability and having never learned to speak properly. To research his character in preparation for his role, Hansen visited a special needs school and watched how the students moved and spoke. John Larroquette performed the narration in the opening credits.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: The primary filming location was an early 1900s farmhouse located on Quick Hill Road near Round Rock, Texas, where the La Frontera development is now located. The small budget and concerns over high-cost equipment rentals meant the crew filmed seven days a week, up to 16 hours a day. The environment was humid and the cast and crew found conditions tough; temperatures peaked at 110°F (43 °C) on July 26. Hansen later recalled, "It was 95, 100 degrees every day during filming. They wouldn't wash my costume because they were worried that the laundry might lose it, or that it would change color. They didn't have enough money for a second costume. So I wore that [mask] 12 to 16 hours a day, seven days a week, for a month."


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" was mainly shot using an Eclair NPR 16mm camera with fine-grain, low-speed film that required four times more light than modern digital cameras. Most of the filming took place in the farmhouse, which was filled with furniture constructed from animal bones and a latex material used as upholstery to give the appearance of human skin. The house was not cooled, and there was little ventilation. The crew covered its walls with drops of animal blood obtained from a local slaughterhouse. Art director Robert A. Burns drove around the countryside and collected the remains of cattle and other animals in various stages of decomposition, with which he littered the floors of the house.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: The special effects were simple and limited by the budget. The on-screen blood was real in some cases, such as the scene in which Leatherface feeds "Grandpa". The crew had difficulty getting the stage blood to come out of its tube, so instead Burns's index finger was cut with a razor. Burns's costume was so drenched with stage blood that it was "virtually solid" by the last day of shooting. The scene in which Leatherface dismembers Kirk with a chainsaw worried actor William Vail (Kirk). After telling Vail to stay still lest he really be killed, Hansen brought the running chainsaw to within of Vail's face. A real hammer was used for the climactic scene at the end, with some takes also featuring a mock-up. However, the actor playing Grandpa was aiming for the floor rather than his victim's head. Still, the shoot was somewhat dangerous, with Hooper noting at the wrap party that all cast members had obtained some level of injury. He stated that "everyone hated me by the end of the production" and that "it just took years for them to kind of cool off."


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: The production exceeded its original $60,000 (about $ adjusted for inflation) budget during editing. Sources differ on the film's final cost, offering figures between $93,000 (about $ inflation-adjusted) and $300,000 (about $ inflation-adjusted). A film production group, Pie in the Sky, partially led by future President of the Texas State Bar Joe K. Longley provided $23,532 (about $ inflation-adjusted) in exchange for 19% of Vortex. This left Henkel, Hooper and the rest of the cast and crew with a 40.5% stake. Warren Skaaren, then head of the Texas Film Commission, helped secure the distribution deal with Bryanston Distributing Company. David Foster, who would later produce the 1982 horror film "The Thing", arranged for a private screening for some of Bryanston's West Coast executives, and received 1.5% of Vortex's profits and a deferred fee of $500 (about $ inflation-adjusted).


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: On August 28, 1974, Louis Peraino of Bryanston agreed to distribute the film worldwide, from which Bozman and Skaaren would receive $225,000 (about $ inflation-adjusted) and 35% of the profits. Years later Bozman stated, "We made a deal with the devil, [sigh], and I guess that, in a way, we got what we deserved." They signed the contract with Bryanston and, after the investors recouped their money (with interest),—and after Skaaren, the lawyers, and the accountants were paid—only $8,100 (about $ inflation-adjusted) was left to be divided among the 20 cast and crew members. Eventually the producers sued Bryanston for failing to pay them their full percentage of the box office profits. A court judgment instructed Bryanston to pay the filmmakers $500,000 (about $ inflation-adjusted), but by then the company had declared bankruptcy. In 1983 New Line Cinema acquired the distribution rights from Bryanston and gave the producers a larger share of the profits.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" premiered in Austin, Texas, on October 1, 1974, almost a year after filming concluded. It screened nationally in the United States as a Saturday afternoon matinée and its false marketing as a "true story" helped it attract a broad audience. For eight years after 1976, it was annually reissued to first-run theaters, promoted by full-page ads. The film eventually grossed more than $30 million in the United States and Canada ($14.4 million in rentals), making it the 12th highest-grossing film initially released in 1974, despite its minuscule budget. Among independent films, it was overtaken in 1978 by John Carpenter's "Halloween", which grossed $47 million.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: Hooper reportedly hoped that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) would give the complete, uncut release print a "PG" rating due to its minimal amount of visible gore. Instead, it was originally rated "X". After several minutes were cut, it was resubmitted to the MPAA and received an "R" rating. A distributor apparently restored the offending material, and at least one theater presented the full version under an "R". In San Francisco, cinema-goers walked out of theaters in disgust and in February 1976, two theaters in Ottawa, Canada, were advised by local police to withdraw the film lest they face morality charges.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: After its initial British release, including a one-year theatrical run in London, "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" was initially banned on the advice of British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) Secretary Stephen Murphy, and subsequently by his successor, James Ferman. While the British ban was in force the word "chainsaw" itself was barred from movie titles, forcing imitators to rename their films. In 1998, despite the BBFC ban, Camden London Borough Council granted the film a license. The following year the BBFC passed "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" uncut for release with an 18 certificate, and it was broadcast a year later on Channel 4.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: When the 83-minute version of the film was submitted to the Australian Classification Board by distributor Seven Keys in June 1975, the Board denied the film a classification, and similarly refused classification of a 77-minute print in December that year. In 1981, the 83-minute version submitted by Greater Union Film Distributors was again refused registration. It was later submitted by Filmways Australasian Distributors and approved for an "R" rating in 1984. It was banned for periods in many other countries, including Brazil, Chile, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Singapore, Sweden and West Germany. In Sweden, it would also symbolize a video nasty, a discussed topic at the time.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" received a mixed reaction upon its initial release. Linda Gross of the "Los Angeles Times" called it "despicable" and described Henkel and Hooper as more concerned with creating a realistic atmosphere than with its "plastic script". Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" said it was "as violent and gruesome and blood-soaked as the title promises", yet praised its acting and technical execution. Donald B. Berrigan of "The Cincinnati Enquirer" praised the lead performance of Burns: "Marilyn Burns, as Sally, deserves a special Academy Award for one of the most sustained and believable acting achievements in movie history." Patrick Taggart of the "Austin American-Statesman" hailed it as the most important horror film since George A. Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" (1968). "Variety" found the picture to be well-made, despite what it called the "heavy doses of gore". John McCarty of "Cinefantastique" stated that the house featured in the film made the Bates motel "look positively pleasant by comparison". Revisiting the film in his 1976 article "Fashions in Pornography" for "Harper's Magazine", Stephen Koch found its sadistic violence to be extreme and unimaginative.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: Critics later frequently praised both the film's aesthetic quality and its power. Observing that it managed to be "horrifying without being a bloodbath (you'll see more gore in a Steven Seagal film)", Bruce Westbrook of the "Houston Chronicle" called it "a backwoods masterpiece of fear and loathing". "TV Guide" thought it was "intelligent" in its "bloodless depiction of violence", while Anton Bitel felt the fact that it was banned in the United Kingdom was a tribute to its artistry. He pointed out how the quiet sense of foreboding at the beginning of the film grows, until the viewer experiences "a punishing assault on the senses". In "Hick Flicks: The Rise and Fall of Redneck Cinema", Scott Von Doviak commended its effective use of daylight shots, unusual among horror films, such as the sight of a corpse draped over a tombstone in the opening sequence. Mike Emery of "The Austin Chronicle" praised the film's "subtle touches"—such as radio broadcasts heard in the background describing grisly murders around Texas—and said that what made it so dreadful was that it never strayed too far from potential reality.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: It has often been described as one of the scariest films of all time. Rex Reed called it the most terrifying film he had ever seen. "Empire" described it as "the most purely horrifying horror movie ever made" and called it "never less than totally committed to scaring you witless". Reminiscing about his first viewing of the film, horror director Wes Craven recalled wondering "what kind of Mansonite crazoid" could have created such a thing. It is a work of "cataclysmic terror", in the words of horror novelist Stephen King, who declared, "I would happily testify to its redeeming social merit in any court in the country." Critic Robin Wood found it one of the few horror films to possess "the authentic quality of nightmare".


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: Based on 63 reviews published since 2000, the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 89% of critics gave it a positive review, with an average score of 8.10/10. The site's critical consensus states, "Thanks to a smart script and documentary-style camerawork, "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" achieves start-to-finish suspense, making it a classic in low-budget exploitation cinema."


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" is considered one of the greatest—and most controversial—horror films of all time and a major influence on the genre. In 1999, Richard Zoglin of "Time" commented that it had "set a new standard for slasher films". "The Times" listed it as one of the 50 most controversial films of all time. Tony Magistrale believes the film paved the way for horror to be used as a vehicle for social commentary. Describing it as "cheap, grubby and out of control", Mark Olsen of the "Los Angeles Times" declared that it "both defines and entirely supersedes the very notion of the exploitation picture". In his book "Dark Romance: Sexuality in the Horror Film", David Hogan called it "the most affecting gore thriller of all and, in a broader view, among the most effective horror films ever made ... the driving force of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is something far more horrible than aberrant sexuality: total insanity." According to Bill Nichols, it "achieves the force of authentic art, profoundly disturbing, intensely personal, yet at the same time far more than personal". Leonard Wolf praised the film as "an exquisite work of art" and compared it to a Greek tragedy, noting the lack of onscreen violence.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: Leatherface has gained a reputation as a significant character in the horror genre, responsible for establishing the use of conventional tools as murder weapons and the image of a large, silent killer devoid of personality. Christopher Null of Filmcritic.com said, "In our collective consciousness, Leatherface and his chainsaw have become as iconic as Freddy and his razors or Jason and his hockey mask." Don Sumner called "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" a classic that not only introduced a new villain to the horror pantheon but also influenced an entire generation of filmmakers. According to Rebecca Ascher-Walsh of "Entertainment Weekly", it laid the foundations for the "Halloween", "Evil Dead", and "Blair Witch" horror franchises. Wes Craven crafted his 1977 film "The Hills Have Eyes" as an homage to "Massacre", while Ridley Scott cited Hooper's film as an inspiration for his 1979 film "Alien". French director Alexandre Aja credited it as an early influence on his career. Horror filmmaker and heavy metal musician Rob Zombie sees it as a major influence on his work, including his films "House of 1000 Corpses" (2003) and "The Devil's Rejects" (2005).


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" was selected for the 1975 Cannes Film Festival Directors' Fortnight and London Film Festival. In 1976, it won the Special Jury Prize at the Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival in France. "Entertainment Weekly" ranked the film sixth on its 2003 list of "The Top 50 Cult Films". In a 2005 "Total Film" poll, it was selected as the greatest horror film of all time. It was named among "Time"s top 25 horror films in 2007. In 2008 the film ranked number 199 on "Empire" magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time". "Empire" also ranked it 46th in its list of the 50 greatest independent films. In a 2010 "Total Film" poll, it was again selected as the greatest horror film; the judging panel included veteran horror directors such as John Carpenter, Wes Craven, and George A. Romero. In 2010, as well, "The Guardian" ranked it number 14 on its list of the top 25 horror films. It was also voted the greatest horror film of all time in "Slant Magazine" 2013 list of the greatest horror films of all time. It was also voted the scariest movie of all time in a 2017 list by "Complex" and voted the best horror movie of all time in a 2017 list by "Thrillist". It was also voted the scariest movie of all time in a 2018 list by "Consequence of Sound" and voted the best horror movie of all time in a 2018 list by "Esquire".


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" was inducted into the Horror Hall of Fame in 1990, with director Hooper accepting the award, and it is part of the permanent collection of New York City's Museum of Modern Art. In 2012, the film was named by critics in the British Film Institute's "Sight & Sound" magazine as one of the 250 greatest films. The Academy Film Archive houses the Texas Chain Saw Massacre Collection, which contains over fifty items, including many original elements for the film.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: Critic Christopher Sharrett argues that since Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" (1960) and "The Birds" (1963), the American horror film has been defined by the questions it poses "about the fundamental validity of the American civilizing process", concerns amplified during the 1970s by the "delegitimation of authority in the wake of Vietnam and Watergate". "If "Psycho" began an exploration of a new sense of absurdity in contemporary life, of the collapse of causality and the diseased underbelly of American Gothic", he writes, "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" "carries this exploration to a logical conclusion, addressing many of the issues of Hitchcock's film while refusing comforting closure".


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: Robin Wood characterizes Leatherface and his family as victims of industrial capitalism, their jobs as slaughterhouse workers having been rendered obsolete by technological advances. He states that the picture "brings to focus a spirit of negativity ... that seems to lie not far below the surface of the modern collective consciousness". Naomi Merritt explores the film's representation of "cannibalistic capitalism" in relation to Georges Bataille's theory of taboo and transgression. She elaborates on Wood's analysis, stating that the Sawyer family's values "reflect, or correspond to, established and interdependent American institutions ... but their embodiment of these social units is perverted and transgressive."


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: In Kim Newman's view, Hooper's presentation of the Sawyer family during the dinner scene parodies a typical American sitcom family: the gas station owner is the bread-winning father figure; the killer Leatherface is depicted as a bourgeois housewife; the hitchhiker acts as the rebellious teenager. Isabel Cristina Pinedo, author of "Recreational Terror: Women and the Pleasures of Horror Film Viewing", states, "The horror genre must keep terror and comedy in tension if it is to successfully tread the thin line that separates it from terrorism and parody ... this delicate balance is struck in "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" in which the decaying corpse of Grandpa not only incorporates horrific and humorous effects, but actually uses one to exacerbate the other."


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: The underlying themes of the film have been the subject of extensive critical discussion; critics and scholars have interpreted it as a paradigmatic exploitation film in which female protagonists are subjected to brutal, sadistic violence. Stephen Prince comments that the horror is "born of the torment of the young woman subjected to imprisonment and abuse amid decaying arms ... and mobiles made of human bones and teeth." As with many slasher films, it incorporates the "final girl" trope—the heroine and inevitable lone survivor who somehow escapes the horror that befalls the other characters: Sally Hardesty is wounded and tortured, yet manages to survive with the help of a male truck driver. Critics argue that even in exploitation films in which the ratio of male and female deaths is roughly equal, the images that linger will be of the violence committed against the female characters. The specific case of "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" provides support for this argument: three men are killed in quick fashion, but one woman is brutally slaughtered—hung on a meathook—and the surviving woman endures physical and mental torture. In 1977, critic Mary Mackey described the meathook scene as probably the most brutal onscreen female death in any commercially distributed film. She placed it in a lineage of violent films that depict women as weak and incapable of protecting themselves.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: In one study, a group of men were shown five films depicting differing levels of violence against women. On first viewing "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" they experienced symptoms of depression and anxiety; however, upon subsequent viewing they found the violence against women less offensive and more enjoyable. Another study, investigating gender-specific perceptions of slasher films, involved 30 male and 30 female university students. One male participant described the screaming, especially Sally's, as the "most freaky thing" in the film.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: According to Jesse Stommel of "Bright Lights Film Journal", the lack of explicit violence in the film forces viewers to question their own fascination with violence that they play a central role in imagining. Nonetheless—citing its feverish camera moves, repeated bursts of light, and auditory pandemonium—Stommel asserts that it involves the audience primarily on a sensory rather than an intellectual level.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" has been described as "the ultimate pro-vegetarian film" due to its animal rights themes. In a video essay, film critic Rob Ager describes the irony in humans' being slaughtered for meat, putting humans in the position of being slaughtered like farm animals. Director Tobe Hooper has confirmed that "it's a film about meat" and even gave up meat while making the film, saying, "In a way I thought the heart of the film was about meat; it’s about the chain of life and killing sentient beings." Writer-director Guillermo del Toro became a vegetarian for a time after seeing the film.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" has appeared on various home video formats. In the US, it was first released on videotape and CED in the early 1980s by Wizard Video and Vestron Video. The British Board of Film Classification had long since refused a certification for the uncut theatrical version and in 1984 they also refused to certify it for home video, amid a moral panic surrounding "video nasties". After the retirement of BBFC Director James Ferman in 1999, the board passed the film uncut for theatrical and video distribution with an 18 certificate, almost 25 years after the original release. "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" was initially released on DVD in October 1998 in the United States, May 2000 in the United Kingdom and 2001 in Australia.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: In 2005 the film received a 2K scan and full restoration from the original 16mm A/B rolls, which was subsequently released on DVD and Blu-ray. In 2014 a more extensive 4K restoration, supervised by Hooper, using the original 16mm A/B reversal rolls, was carried out. After a screening in the Directors' Fortnight section of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, this was also released on DVD and Blu-ray worldwide. Dark Sky Films' US 40th Anniversary Edition was nominated for Best DVD/BD Special Edition Release at the 2015 Saturn Awards.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: In 1982, shortly after "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" established itself as a success on US home video, Wizard Video released a mass-market video game adaptation for the Atari 2600. In the game, the player assumes the role of Leatherface and attempts to murder trespassers while avoiding obstacles such as fences and cow skulls. As one of the first horror-themed video games, "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" caused controversy when it was first released due to its violent nature; it sold poorly as a result, because many game stores refused to stock it.


title: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

text: The film has been followed by eight other films to date, including sequels, prequels and remakes. The first sequel, "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2" (1986), was considerably more graphic and violent than the original and was banned in Australia for 20 years before it was released on DVD in a revised special edition in October 2006. "" (1990) was the second sequel to appear, though Hooper did not return to direct due to scheduling conflicts with another film, "Spontaneous Combustion". "", starring Renée Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey, was released in 1995. While briefly acknowledging the events of the preceding two sequels, its plot makes it a virtual remake of the 1974 original. A straight remake, "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", was released by Platinum Dunes and New Line Cinema in 2003. It was followed by a prequel, "", in 2006. A seventh film, "Texas Chainsaw 3D", was released on January 4, 2013. It is a direct sequel to the original 1974 film, with no relation to the previous sequels, or the 2003 remake. Another prequel, "Leatherface", was released exclusively to DirecTV on September 21, 2017, before receiving a wider release on video on demand and in limited theaters, simultaneously, in North America on October 20, 2017. Another sequel, "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", was released exclusively on Netflix on February 18, 2022.


title: Smartphone

text: A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, which facilitate wider software, internet (including web browsing over mobile broadband), and multimedia functionality (including music, video, cameras, and gaming), alongside core phone functions such as voice calls and text messaging. Smartphones typically contain a number of metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) integrated circuit (IC) chips, include various sensors that can be leveraged by pre-included and third-party software (such as a magnetometer, proximity sensors, barometer, gyroscope, accelerometer and more), and support wireless communications protocols (such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or satellite navigation).


title: Smartphone

text: Early smartphones were marketed primarily towards the enterprise market, attempting to bridge the functionality of standalone personal digital assistant (PDA) devices with support for cellular telephony, but were limited by their bulky form, short battery life, slow analog cellular networks, and the immaturity of wireless data services. These issues were eventually resolved with the exponential scaling and miniaturization of MOS transistors down to sub-micron levels (Moore's law), the improved lithium-ion battery, faster digital mobile data networks (Edholm's law), and more mature software platforms that allowed mobile device ecosystems to develop independently of data providers.


title: Smartphone

text: In the 2000s, NTT DoCoMo's i-mode platform, BlackBerry, Nokia's Symbian platform, and Windows Mobile began to gain market traction, with models often featuring QWERTY keyboards or resistive touchscreen input, and emphasizing access to push email and wireless internet. Following the rising popularity of the iPhone in the late 2000s, the majority of smartphones have featured thin, slate-like form factors, with large, capacitive screens with support for multi-touch gestures rather than physical keyboards, and offer the ability for users to download or purchase additional applications from a centralized store, and use cloud storage and synchronization, virtual assistants, as well as mobile payment services. Smartphones have largely replaced PDAs, handheld/palm-sized PCs, portable media players (PMP) and to a lesser extent, handheld video game consoles.


title: Smartphone

text: Improved hardware and faster wireless communication (due to standards such as LTE) have bolstered the growth of the smartphone industry. In the third quarter of 2012, one billion smartphones were in use worldwide. Global smartphone sales surpassed the sales figures for feature phones in early 2013.


title: Smartphone

text: In the early 1990s, IBM engineer Frank Canova realised that chip-and-wireless technology was becoming small enough to use in handheld devices. The first commercially available device that could be properly referred to as a "smartphone" began as a prototype called "Angler" developed by Canova in 1992 while at IBM and demonstrated in November of that year at the COMDEX computer industry trade show. A refined version was marketed to consumers in 1994 by BellSouth under the name Simon Personal Communicator. In addition to placing and receiving cellular calls, the touchscreen-equipped Simon could send and receive faxes and emails. It included an address book, calendar, appointment scheduler, calculator, world time clock, and notepad, as well as other visionary mobile applications such as maps, stock reports and news.


title: Smartphone

text: The IBM Simon was manufactured by Mitsubishi Electric, which integrated features from its own wireless personal digital assistant (PDA) and cellular radio technologies. It featured a liquid-crystal display (LCD) and PC Card support. The Simon was commercially unsuccessful, particularly due to its bulky form factor and limited battery life, using NiCad batteries rather than the nickel–metal hydride batteries commonly used in mobile phones in the 1990s, or lithium-ion batteries used in modern smartphones.


title: Smartphone

text: The term "smart phone" was not coined until a year after the introduction of the Simon, appearing in print as early as 1995, describing AT&T's PhoneWriter Communicator. The term "smartphone" was first used by Ericsson in 1997 to describe a new device concept, the GS88.