The raccoon is one of the most thoroughly recorded mammals in Arkansas, 1463 records reaching nearly every corner of the state. Sebastian County and the Arkansas River valley hold the heaviest share, but reports run north through Pope and Washington counties and across both national forests, a map of an animal at home wherever water and cover meet.
At home from the highlands to the Delta
A raccoon’s front paws are its signature, nimble fingers that pry crayfish from creek gravel, open freshwater mussels, and work over acorns and persimmons. Arkansas suits that generalist hand from end to end. Records cluster around the streams of Ouachita National Forest and the gravel bars of the Buffalo National River, hold through the hardwood slopes of Pinnacle Mountain State Park and Petit Jean State Park, and reach Village Creek State Park on the forested Crowley’s Ridge. Towns count as habitat too, since raccoons den readily in attics, culverts, and hollow trees.
Awake all year
Raccoons do not truly hibernate. In hard cold they den up for days at a stretch, but Arkansas winters are mild enough that records fall in every month, topping out in May, when the year’s first young begin following their mother on night foraging trips.
Status in Arkansas
NatureServe ranks the raccoon S5, Secure, in Arkansas, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
