With 3,855 records, the raccoon is one of Washington’s most-documented mammals. King County alone accounts for 1,310, and the map runs from the developed shorelines of Puget Sound out to San Juan Islands National Monument, which holds more raccoon records than any other named site in the state.
Water, hands, and an appetite for anything
A raccoon’s forepaws are nearly as nimble as a monkey’s, and its famous habit of working food in water is really an extension of how it feels for crayfish, clams, and frogs along shorelines and stream edges. That dexterity, plus a diet that stretches from berries and bird eggs to garden vegetables and unsecured trash, lets the species thrive almost anywhere Washington offers water and cover, whether that is Olympic National Park’s forest floor or a culvert behind a Pierce County subdivision.
Year-round, with a June swell
Raccoons do not hibernate, though they den up and sleep through the worst cold snaps. Washington’s record stays strong in every month and crests in June, when spring-born kits begin following their mothers on nighttime foraging rounds and family groups double or triple the animals abroad after dark.
Status in Washington
NatureServe ranks the common raccoon S5, Secure, in Washington, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
