The Early Warning Infectious Disease Surveillance Program (EWIDS), County of San Diego Department of Environmental Health, and Project Wildlife are evaluating raccoons as potential early warning sentinel species for West Nile Virus (WNV) surveillance. Research has indicated that raccoons shed WNV through oral and fecal routes, and that this may have important implications for public health and animal health. Raccoons are peridomestic animals; thus they may allow for better localization of WNV activity in communities and may serve as more effective early warning sentinels for WNV than traditional bird sentinels.