Maine’s Norway rat records turn up in the wildlife management areas, wooded river corridors, and state parks scattered through the south-central uplands and along the coast, wherever people have built the docks, farms, and drainage systems this introduced species depends on.
This is a burrower, not a climber. It digs tunnels along riverbanks, under sheds, and beneath pavement, and it will eat nearly anything, from stored grain and garden crops to insects and carrion, which is part of why it has followed people to almost every port and farm town in the state.
Records here run year-round but climb in April and May and again in October, matching the rat’s general activity pattern rather than any special Maine-specific cycle. Reports cluster in the state’s populated corridors because that’s where the burrows, buildings, and monitoring effort concentrate, not because the species is confined to those places.
Full species profile
