CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (WBOY) — An animal considered by the National Park Service (NPS) to be a “species of special concern” in West Virginia was recently spotted on a trail camera in the Monongahela National Forest.
The National Forest shared images from March on its official Facebook page this week. In the post, it says there are only about 100,000 federally threatened Allegheny woodrats left in the wild. Despite its name and large size, the rodent is more closely related to a mouse than a rat.
Unlike its less desirable cousins, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources describes the Allegheny woodrat as “docile and meticulously clean, thus posing no threat to human health or safety.” It does, however, have a habit of picking up shiny objects and bringing them to its nest, Tennessee wildlife officials said.
While the Monongahela National Forest said there is speculation about the reasons for the decline of the Allegheny woodrat, some scientists believe the gypsy moth, also known as the gypsy moth, which harms acorn oaks , damages the rodent’s food source and habitat.
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The Forest Service did not say where in the forest the Allegheny woodrat was spotted.
In October 2022, the NPS announced that it found adult and juvenile Allegheny woodrats in Harpers Ferry while conducting an investigation. It was the first time the animal had been seen in the national historical park in more than 20 years at the time. Before the results of the investigation, the animal was thought to have gone locally extinct.
The woodrat, primarily nocturnal, was once found in Connecticut, western Indiana and southern Alabama, according to the Pennsylvania Game Commission. The species’ range, like its population, is thought to have since declined. In addition to West Virginia, it has been granted conservation status in Alabama, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, l Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia, explains the NPS.
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