The common raccoon turns up in 73 North Dakota records spread across 28 counties, an unusually even scatter led by Stutsman and Cass. That wide map matches the animal itself, a generalist that manages to live nearly anywhere the state offers trees, water, and a place to den.
A night shift tied to water
Raccoons are omnivores with famously nimble front paws, and they forage along shorelines, sloughs, and wooded waterways for crayfish, frogs, insects, eggs, and whatever else turns up. In a prairie state, that diet pulls them toward river corridors, wetland edges, and the shelterbelts and farmstead groves that break up the open ground, the same kind of cover found around Long Lake, J. Clark Salyer, and Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuges. Hollow trees and dense brush provide daytime dens, and since almost all activity happens after dark, muddy tracks along a shoreline or culvert are often the only sign one left behind.
Winter rest without true hibernation
During the worst cold a raccoon holes up in its den for days or weeks and lives off stored fat, but it is not a true hibernator, and mild spells bring it back out even in January. North Dakota’s records run in every month of the year, rising from May through July when females are provisioning young and food along the waterways is at its richest.
Status in North Dakota
NatureServe ranks the common raccoon S5, Secure, in North Dakota, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
