In a state this dry, raccoon records amount to a map of water. Of 1022 New Mexico records, the densest trace the Rio Grande through Rio Grande Valley State Park and the Albuquerque bosque, while others gather around scattered lakes and mountain drainages such as Bottomless Lakes State Park, Santa Fe National Forest, and Lincoln National Forest.
Tied to water in a dry land
A raccoon can live on almost anything, crayfish and frogs worked out of a creek, insects, fruit, eggs, carrion, but in the Southwest it rarely lives far from a stream or pond. New Mexico’s cottonwood-lined rivers give it both food and den trees, letting a woodland animal range deep into desert country along the Rio Grande corridor. Its front paws are famously deft, able to feel and handle prey underwater, and most of that foraging happens after dark.
Fall is the busy season
Records peak in September and October, when raccoons feed hard to put on fat ahead of winter. New Mexico raccoons do not truly hibernate, but they den up through cold spells in hollow cottonwoods or rocky crevices, and mild winter nights along the river still turn them up.
Status in New Mexico
NatureServe ranks the raccoon S4, Apparently Secure, in New Mexico, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
