40 Years of Raccoon Trapping in Illinois

To understand the factors influencing furbearer harvests in Illinois, 43 years of raccoon trapper harvest records were gathered from the Illinois Natural History Survey’s Illinois Trapper Survey. We learned that raccoons are the most widely harvested furbearing species in Illinois. Each year an average of 85,000 raccoons are harvested. While the number of harvested raccoons has fluctuated over the past 40 years, there is no clear trend in the number of animals taken.