Meeting North Carolina's mammals

Coyotes, deer, rabbits, and raccoons range nearly everywhere in North Carolina. By looking for signs and tracks around your school campus, students can learn all about them.

By Linda Dow

Look but don't touch! Mammals are wonderful to watch and to track, but remind children not to feed them or interfere with a nest. (More about the photograph)

Learn more

• North American Mammals Searchable database of all living mammals of North America with tool to create printable field guides.
• The North Carolina Wildlife Resource Commission provides information on the animals in this article, as well as many others.

Related pages

• Chestnut Ridge Camp and Retreat Center: Offers a selection of informative, interactive and experientially-based programs in outdoor and environmental education.
• Occoneechee Mountain State Natural Area: Originally settled by the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation, the Occoneechee Mountain State Natural Area has a diversity of natural communities including undisturbed forest and a wide variety of wildlife species.
• Stone Mountain State Park: This park not only allows enjoying the beauty of the area but also provides instruction in basic geologic concepts.

Related topics

• Learn more about North Carolina, biology, coyotes, deer, mammals, rabbits, raccoons, and science.

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Animals fascinate children, and one of their favorite groups of animals is mammals. They are always thrilled to see evidence of wild mammals on and around the school campus. With some background information and a little time outdoors, you and your students will find the evidence that proves they are, indeed, living nearby.

Define “mammal”

Perfectly by accident one day, I discovered that there are three M’s in the word mammal. I wrote the word in giant letters on the board and asked my class to count the M’s. I told them that the three M’s in the word stand for “Mammals get Milk from their Mothers.” The words mamma and mammary come from the same Latin root word that refers to breast.

The definition that I had always been given was that mammals had fur. This is not very helpful when you are looking at a whale. This new definition made a lot more sense to the children and to me.

Keep it simple

It was a lesson on the subject of mammals where I first learned not to complicate concepts in a kindergarten class. I had been attempting to drive the idea home that “mammals get milk from their mothers.” I had shown pictures of different mammals to the children and was holding and petting the classroom rabbit. I made the fatal mistake of attempting to throw another idea their way.

I asked them, “Why do you think that it feels good to a mammal when we pet them?”

As I petted the rabbit, I also moved my head up and down along with my hand movement. The students were able to conclude that petting feels like licking to a mammal. It feels good because it feels like their mother’s tongue.

Satisfied, I tried to bring them back to the original concept and asked, “And how do we know that this rabbit is a mammal?”

A little girl held her hand high and answered me confidently, “’Cause it feels good when you lick ‘em.”

Coyotes

The Museum of Natural Sciences, in Raleigh, offers wonderful workshops for teachers. Several years ago, I was attending one such workshop and participating in a discussion with the curator in charge of their mammal collection. He showed us a coyote skin and stated, “There are coyotes in every county in North Carolina.” Have you ever noticed how once you learn of something, you see it everywhere? That’s just what happened to me. I’ve been spotting coyotes and their sign ever since.

Coyotes are classified as carnivores but they are opportunistic. They will also eat berries, fruit, and other vegetation, including farm crops. Most of their diet consists of rabbits, mice, squirrels, birds, and insects as well as whitetail fawns and livestock.

Although they can be seen or heard at any time of day or night, their activity is usually crepuscular. That is, they are most active during the early morning and the early evening. They talk to each other in yips and yaps and howl together before mating.

Beginning as early as late February, the female will give birth to six to eight pups. The male feeds the female for a short period of time. Then they both feed the young by returning to the den and regurgitating partially digested meat. Their grown young from the previous year’s litter will sometimes help with the care and feeding of the pups.

Coyotes form packs or hunting parties, which consist of a mated pair and their growing offspring. The young may disperse at six to nine months of age, in search of a mate. When they find one, they will stay paired, usually for life.

If you spot a coyote, you should not be afraid. On the contrary, you should consider yourself blessed. Coyotes are wary of humans and prefer to keep their distance.

I surprised a good-sized male once while walking in the woods. We both froze and stared at each other. I recognized the pointy face and large ears and in that moment before he ran, I got a good look at his beautiful reddish-gray coat, soft, white throat and belly, and bushy tail with a black tip. A full-grown coyote rarely weighs more than forty pounds. The thick coat made him appear larger. The tracks they leave are surprisingly small in proportion to the animal’s size.

Eastern Cottontail rabbits

The Eastern Cottontail rabbit is also very common in North Carolina. The female makes two or three nests a year. She digs a bowl shape in the ground — about the size of half a grapefruit. She lines it with dry grass and fur from her own body. Once the babies are born, she will cover them with a lid of grass and fur as protection against the elements. She doesn’t stay with her young. She only returns to them a few times after dark. She’ll uncover them and lay down on top to nurse.

Every year, people discover these babies and assume they are abandoned. I often ask my students, “What should you do when you find a baby bird or a baby animal?” They always respond, “Leave them alone!” They make me so proud.

The young are independent after only a few weeks. They look so little and helpless. It’s tempting to intervene. The fact is, they generally do not do well in captivity and even in the wild; most of them do not survive. That’s nature’s way. They are furry little snacks for some other animal. After all, baby foxes, hawks, and coyotes have to eat, too.

The cottontails that do survive to become adults may live for a year. Most do not reach the ripe old age of two.

The Eastern Cottontail is by far the most common rabbit in North America. Their numbers have actually increased with human development. The cottontail thrives in agricultural areas and where fields and forests meet.

They require the cover that shrubbery, thick undergrowth, and hedges provide. In fact, you can create habitat for them by partially cutting evergreens and bending them over to the ground or making brush piles for cover.

You can also encourage them to your campus by growing food plants like clover. Unfortunately, if you have a garden, you are well aware of the fact that clover isn’t their only food. Cottontails can be very destructive in a garden, as they will eat almost anything that grows. A fence at least two feet high will deter them. Make sure that the bottom of the fence is buried into the ground, a few inches.

In order to observe these animals, you might begin by looking for their “sign.” Tracks or fur or droppings are commonly what we look for. The nests are often marked by the small mound of dirt that the doe dup up.

In the winter, when green vegetation is scarce, they will chew the bark around the base of small trees, sometimes causing real damage. They will nip the green ends off of branches at any time of the year, with a neat 45-degree slice.

They travel in well-worn paths called “travel lanes.” In long grass, these lanes can look like tunnels. They also make little round beds — usually under the low-lying branch of a tree, in a rock crevice, or against a log. All of the grass is bent in the same direction, so that it has the appearance of a tiny crop circle. This is where they sit and watch, unnoticed, as you pass by.

It is enchanting to observe rabbits as they get a drink of water by licking the dew off of plants or the leaves of a small tree. Consider yourself blessed as you and your students watch them nibble on new grass or dandelion leaves or even the endive in your garden.

And remember how wise my students are. When you find those baby cottontails, leave them alone.

Raccoons

Years ago, this region had far fewer raccoons than we do, today. They are highly adaptable creatures and have actually benefited from proximity to man. First of all, we shot or ran off their primary predator — the wolf. Then, we provided them with crops and garbage to eat and shelter in our attics, barns, sheds, culverts, and chimneys.

Early settlers routinely hunted and trapped the raccoon. Their fat was used to make a salve for cuts and burns. The pelts were used to make fur coats and hats and the meat was regularly eaten.

Today, we hunt and trap far fewer raccoons. As a result, they often become over-populated and suffer from distemper, rabies, and diseases caused by malnutrition. Now, their only predators are hawks, which might occasionally grab a young raccoon, and coyotes, which might rarely tackle an adult. Cars and disease kill far more raccoons.

In the wild, they probably live two to three years on average, although they are capable of living for up to sixteen years. They maintain solitary lives, experiencing only chance encounters with other raccoons whose territories might overlap their own.

The female raccoon gives birth sometime in March or April in a sheltered den, often a hollow tree or burrow. She might have one cub or as many as eight; but the usual number is two or three. The first few months of life find them totally dependant on their mother.

Gradually, they become more and more adventurous, exploring further and further from home. They will frequent streams and ponds where one of their favorite foods lives — the crayfish. Raccoons’ little hands are quite sensitive and they actually feel around under rocks and along the bottom for the crustaceans. It might be this activity that brought about the belief that raccoons wash their food before they eat.

There are several signs that indicate a raccoon lives nearby. He creates a narrow path in the woods, as he regularly travels the same corridors. His fur is sometimes caught on the narrow entrance of his home in a hollow log or tree.

The next time you and your students are walking near the woods or by a stream, look for tracks. You might say they look like tiny children’s handprints in the sand or mud. Another clue that he’s been nearby is the remains of his meals. Raccoons leave behind the crayfish tails and toads’ skins. Although they eat entire frogs, they prefer to peel their toads.

Whitetail deer

I often see deer on my way to work in the morning and I’ve even seen them on my school campus. It’s no wonder. North Carolina Fish and Game boasts the state population of deer at somewhere around a million.

Whitetails often mark their territories by scraping clean a spot on the ground. They will use their hooves to clear a two by three foot patch of dirt. One of the best places to find these scrapings is at the edge of a field.

You can also look for their heart-shaped tracks or the gouges the bucks make on trees in their attempts to scrape the velvet off their antlers.

Beginning in the late spring, the does usually give birth to one or two fawns. They are only six to nine pounds at birth. How tiny and fragile they seem! The milk they receive from their mother is rich with the nutrition and anti-bodies they need to grow and to fight infection and disease.

They spend a lot of time — up to twelve hours a day — hunkered down in the underbrush. They are virtually odorless, so that a passing predator cannot detect their presence. They are weaned at four months and will stay with their mother for a year. A buck will live for five to six years. A doe will live for seven to ten.

Adult whitetails eat grass, weeds, farm crops, and mushrooms. They have even been observed eating insects and the occasional fish. The deer grazes for an hour or so, to fill the first of four chambers in its stomach. Then it lies down to regurgitate and chew. This aids in the digestion.

For years, I thought that a deer flashed the white underside of its tail as a warning for other deer. A few years ago, another theory was offered to me. Mike Dunn, a naturalist with the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, said that once the white is flashed at a predator, the deer then reveals only the gray or brown fur on the top. That momentary flash was a distraction. Hopefully, the predator would keep looking for the white animal, while the gray or brown animal slipped away into the woods. This seems a more likely explanation to me.

When you spot a deer, watch the position of its tail. If it has detected your presence, it will begin to raise its tail. The higher the position, the more alarmed it is. If its tail is vertical, say good-bye.

A word to the wise

You might be tempted to leave food out in order to encourage animals to come closer to your campus. It is probably best not to do so. Wild animals that become accustomed to human activity often become pests. A wiser policy would be to go out and look for signs of their presence. Children love to look for signs and tracks. Once you begin looking for them, you’ll wonder why you hadn’t noticed them before.