Almost every New York record of the Allegheny woodrat comes from one corner of the state: Ulster County, with a handful more from neighboring Orange. That’s the Shawangunk ridge country, and it fits the animal. This woodrat doesn’t want wetlands or deep forest floor; it wants rock. Cliffs, talus slopes, and boulder fields give it the crevices where it builds its stick house and caches food.
New York sits at the northeastern edge of the species’ range, and NatureServe ranks it S1, critically imperiled, here. A cluster of records in one ridge system means the state’s whole known footprint could hang on a few stretches of rock. It also means the record mostly shows where biologists have run surveys, not a census. Ridges that haven’t been worked could hold animals nobody has counted.
Reports peak from June through August, which is when survey crews and hikers are most active on the ridge, and when young woodrats start wandering. Winter records exist but are few, since the animals stay holed up in their dens through the cold. The giveaway on a summer walk is the sign rather than the animal: piles of sticks tucked under overhangs, and caches of leaves and oddments dragged into the cracks.
Full species profile
