Vermont’s occurrence record for the common raccoon runs to 2,342 records and reaches all fourteen counties, with the heaviest concentrations in Washington and Chittenden counties, the settled heart of the state between the Green Mountains and Lake Champlain.
Woods, water, and a free pair of hands
A raccoon makes its living where water and cover meet, feeling along streambeds and marsh edges for crayfish, frogs, clams, and whatever else its forepaws turn up. That flexibility shows in where Vermont’s records sit, from Green Mountain National Forest’s stream corridors to the wetlands of the West Fairlee, Little Otter Creek, and Dead Creek wildlife management areas, with plenty of records from farm country and town neighborhoods in between.
A winter den, not a hibernation
Raccoons do not truly hibernate, but through a Vermont winter they den up for days or weeks during cold snaps and live off stored fat. Records are thinnest from December through February and climb steadily into an April and May peak, when females are raising young in tree hollows and rock dens and every animal is ranging wider in search of food.
Status in Vermont
NatureServe ranks the common raccoon S5, Secure, in Vermont, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
