This ringtail showed up in Twin Falls, ID this week. It was found near the sugar factory which isn't good habitat for anything, quite dangerous in fact. The IDFG trapped it and moved it well out in the country to better and safer habitat.
This is only the 5th ringtail ever seen in Idaho. It's well outside of it's normal range. It does invite questions about whether there are more of them here.

Damn! When I was a kid we used to trap hell out of them!

Have 'em around here in Utah.....how many ? Who knows

Have only ever seen a handful....at night

Made me look.......

https://wildaboututah.org/ringtails/

I knew there was a chupacabra.

You could get good money for them too. And they were plentiful!

Now, I rarely see them. Even with no demand for fur.

Damn sure no shortage on coons.

Have had helluva time trying to explain the existence of them to foreigners. (Folks from other states). Because it’s a proven fact they all know more that we poor rednecks do!

Huh, never seen one. Even from the pic I just thought it was a 'coon.

never seen one

Ringtails got hit hard by feline distemper in Cen\Tex. Some call them "ringtail cat".

Opened up an abandoned ground blind on our deer lease SW of Sonora, TX to retrieve a chair. Three or four 'miners cats' flew out, scared the crap out of me, but my buddy was laughing so hard he nearly passed out.

They're called ringtail cats in much of the south but they aren't related to cats. They're closer related to racoons.

Fierce in a leg-hold trap and smelly. Coonish, the picture doesn't show
that it has a pretty long tail.

I've only heard of Ringtails, I've trapped and spent a lot of time outdoors and have never seen a skunk in the wild. See them all the time in trapping video's, skunk in my yard, shot two skunks, on and on, me - been outdoors for 50+ years >never seen one.

I had no idea they could survive that far north. Very cool

Global warming 😀

Skunks? You'll smell them a lot more often than you'll see them. If you'll pay the shipping, I'm sure that someone here will send you a couple to have around your yard. We have plenty here but I don't have a live trap (and not likely to buy one if skunks are involved).

Never seen one, kinda looks like a fox crashed into a coon far in excess of the speed limit.

Actually, I've thought about that. Our winters here along the Snake River are warmer than they used to be. A couple weeks ago we dropped below 0 (-2) for the 1st time in 5 or 6 years. It used to regularly get down to -10 or lower. We are in a warming trend. The global warming fraud is claiming it's man caused.

All the city folks here think they are escaped lemurs! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I've only seen one, that a buddy over near Santa Fe hadn't trapped. He's gotten a few over the years, but they are uncommon, here.

If you get one in a live trap toss a blanket or heavy towel over it , they won’t spray for some reason .
Then you can transport them to your favorite nieghbors cellar 😀

My dogs trees one one night in a San Antonio city park, it was vocalizing pretty loud, a raspy high pitched sound the only time I’ve seen a live one.

Had one calling at dusk just last week in a different city park.

Here’s a way that ringtail could turned up in Idaho Falls...

They're common here. I had two climb through the funnels into my quail recall pens and kill all my birds.

That map says we gottem, but I've never seen one. Might be I'm just blind....

Rock Chuck: Very interesting - thanks for sharing.
Put me in the "never seen one" column.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Surprised they aint got across the Mississippi yet into the southeast.
Bad enough armadillos been around here for the last 10 or so years.
Intelligent little nocturnal animal like those ringtails per the link would have a field day for life in the southeast with all the food sources rural and urban.

Got em out here on the coast too, though not plentiful. Shine the trees at night and you’ll spot one once in awhile.

Did not realize their habitat or range was so close to me extreme Southwest Missouri. Spent quite a bit of time within there range and never seen one.

Looks like a cross between a possum and a coon.

I've seen one in the central Sierra Nevadas.
Dead on the side of the road. Never have seen one since.
That was 20 years ago.

That is a funky looking critter -

I kind of wish I had seen one or lived where they are…. Kind of weird looking critter - Neat !

I don’t know if they are good or bad for things though..

I've only seen one and it was at least 20 years ago in the Northern Sacramento Valley. One of my daughters cats had one treed up on a ladder that was against the house.

I'd heard barking out by the back porch so flipped on the light and opened the screen door and the little bugger was making a hoarse barking noise on the top of the ladder three feet away. Got the cat to leave it alone and it wandered back into the orchard.

I've never seen one.

Curious why you would proclaim the sugar factory dangerous habitat.

I spent three weeks there in 82. We shot chucks and caught trout in Rock Creek each Sunday on the factory grounds. Has the area become extensively urbanized since then?

Or perhaps you refer to extensive truck and rail traffic? But that could be encountered anywhere.

The sugar factory grounds in Nyssa Or has a resident herd of deer, extensive populations of chucks, quail, pheasant, fox, and of course the ubiquitous rock dove.

I'm in the SW corner of MO. Old timers here call them Civet Cats. Used to trap them. I've never saw 1 here and I'm 33. Vanished like quail, jack rabbits, and beaver.

Civet cat down in this neck of the woods is a spotted skunk.

the IDFG considered it dangerous enough that they trapped and moved it. The Rock Creek canyon is right behind the sugar factory. You'd think it would give lots of protection so I don't know what their thinking was. There are deer and who knows what else living down there.

Extremely nocturnal. Only one I've ever seen was in the shop building behind some shelves at one place I worked in the desert along the Colorado River (the real one, not that Texas one ) And that's with me being a night owl and having a lot of jobs where I worked nights.

I think they're called miners' cats because they really like the dark. Those are night goggles he's wearing.

When dad was a kid ( he was born and raised in Atascosa county about 30 miles below San Antonio) he said there was a fella that would come by the feed store every week and buy critters from them. Snakes, lizards , butterflies, coons, possums, etc. Just about any critter they could bring back n alive.
They lived out in the blackjacks and they would go out at night with a carbide light and catch stuff. Dad said one night they had a possum and a ringtail they had caught in a tow sack. Then they caught a coon and threw it in the sack. And he heaved it up on his back just in time for the fight to start.
He had a scar on his back where that old boar coon buried claws in him. This was probably right before the war and he was aboy 12 and his brother about 9 or 10. They did that kinda stuff back then! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I've only ever seen them near Mt Shasta on the McCloud River in northern California. First one I saw I didn't know what the hell I was looking at

they are easy to tame. friend up in Campwood had a couple.