South Carolina’s occurrence record for the common raccoon is one of the deepest mammal files in the state, 1,332 records spread from the Upstate to the sea islands. Charleston and Beaufort counties lead the coastal end, Richland anchors the Midlands, and Pickens and Greenville carry the foothills, with Congaree National Park’s bottomlands the single richest named site.
At home where water meets woods
A raccoon is built to feed along wet edges, and its front paws do the delicate work. Those paws are sensitive enough to identify food by touch alone, which is why raccoons so often hunt crayfish, frogs, clams, and crabs by feel in shallow water, then shift to acorns, berries, eggs, and insects as the seasons turn. South Carolina offers that menu in abundance, from the tidal creeks behind Huntington Beach and Hunting Island state parks to the flooded forest of Congaree, and raccoons use it all, denning in hollow trees and moving easily between wild wetlands and settled neighborhoods.
A calendar without an off season
Raccoons do not hibernate. In cold spells they hole up for days in a tree cavity or ground burrow, but South Carolina’s mild winters rarely keep one down for long, and records appear in every month of the year. Mating runs from late winter into spring, and females raise their kits in tree dens through early summer, when family groups begin foraging together.
Status in South Carolina
NatureServe ranks the common raccoon S5, Secure, in South Carolina, and the species is native across the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
