Animals & Plants of Cuyahoga Valley National Park

The 4 animals, plants, and fungi you can find at Cuyahoga Valley National Park, with sizes, diets, and whether you should worry. See the full park guide at Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

Cuyahoga Valley is a green river corridor between two cities, and the wildlife there is the everyday sort that thrives on edges. White-tailed deer browse the meadows and floodplain, eastern gray squirrels and eastern chipmunks work the oak forest, and little brown bats hunt the river at dusk.

Anything here that bites?

Keep away

• White-tailed deer: White-tailed deer normally run from people.

Bites if handled

• Eastern chipmunk: There is no real danger, just one rule: don't hand-feed wildlife.
• Eastern gray squirrel: Nearly none.
• Little brown bat: Very low risk.

Everything else on this page is harmless. What each group means.

• Mammal

  Eastern chipmunk

  Tamias striatus

  A busy striped ground squirrel that stuffs seeds into stretchy cheek pouches and hides them in an underground pantry.

• Mammal

  Eastern gray squirrel

  Sciurus carolinensis

  A gray acrobat of the oak woods that buries nuts one by one and sometimes forgets where, sprouting new forests by accident.

• Mammal

  Little brown bat

  Myotis lucifugus

  A tiny brown flyer that hunts insects over water at dusk and sleeps in caves and barns, eating half its own weight in bugs each night.

• Mammal

  White-tailed deer

  Odocoileus virginianus

  The most common large mammal in eastern parks, running through the woods and waving a white tail like a flag when it bolts.