The common raccoon reaches essentially every corner of West Virginia. The state’s 583 records span 50 of its 55 counties, from Monongalia, Ohio, Preston, and Hampshire in the north to Fayette and Raleigh in the south, with Jackson’s Mill, Monongahela National Forest, Kanawha State Forest, and New River Gorge National Park and Preserve among the most productive named sites.
An omnivore at home almost anywhere
A raccoon needs three things, cover, water, and food, and West Virginia supplies all three in abundance. Hollow trees and rock crevices serve as dens, and its famously dexterous front paws handle everything from crayfish and frogs pulled from streams to acorns, berries, corn, and campground leftovers. That flexibility makes it as much an animal of towns, farms, and river bottoms as of deep forest, and the masked face and ringed tail turn up wherever the two overlap.
Busy all year, busiest in spring
Reports come in every month, with the strongest showing from March through June. Raccoons do not hibernate, though they may den up through the coldest stretches of a mountain winter and live off stored fat. Spring brings the real surge: females give birth to litters of kits in April, May, and June, and nursing mothers forage long hours, which puts more raccoons on the move and more five-toed tracks in streamside mud.
Status in West Virginia
NatureServe ranks the common raccoon S5, Secure, in West Virginia, and the species is native statewide. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous in the state.
