California’s 647 ringtail records map the state’s rocky canyon and foothill country from end to end. San Diego County leads, but the record runs unbroken up the coast ranges and into the Sierra, from Yosemite National Park and the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument to the canyon reserves of the Sacramento Valley’s western edge.
The cat of the raccoon family
Despite its housecat size and foxlike face, the ringtail is a member of the raccoon family, and it shares that family’s grasping forepaws and restless curiosity. It is strictly nocturnal and an exceptional climber, able to rotate its hind feet to descend cliffs and tree trunks headfirst, and it dens by day in rock crevices, boulder piles, hollows, and the occasional abandoned building. Water nearby helps, which is why canyon streams like those along Putah Creek Wildlife Area and Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve suit it as well as the boulder country of Los Padres National Forest and Riverside Mountains Wilderness Area.
A calendar without a hard season
Ringtails do not hibernate, and California’s mild winters keep them moving in every month. Records hold steady through the year, with their highest counts from January through March and a dip in midsummer, when hot nights see less activity on both sides of the encounter. Most people who meet a ringtail meet it by accident, a pair of eyeshine and a long banded tail slipping over the rocks.
Status in California
NatureServe lists the ringtail as SNR, Unranked, in California, though the species is native to the state and globally secure. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
