Wyoming’s occurrence data holds 1,660 American red squirrel records, and the state’s mountain conifer forests carry nearly all of them. Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks alone account for 61 of the state’s mapped sightings between them.
A conifer specialist across two ranges
This squirrel needs a working stand of cone-bearing trees, and Wyoming’s records trace the lodgepole pine, Engelmann spruce, and subalpine fir forest that blankets Yellowstone and the Tetons. Farther out on the northeastern plains, Devils Tower National Monument holds a smaller but real cluster of records too, its ponderosa pine woodland acting as an island of the right habitat in country that’s otherwise open grassland.
Caching season drives the summer surge
Records climb steadily from June through September, the stretch when a red squirrel is busiest cutting and caching green conifer cones into a midden pile for winter, and loudest defending that cache with a rapid, rattling call. It’s active by day year-round rather than hibernating, so the summer spike in records tracks peak caching activity and more people in the woods, not a seasonal disappearance.
Status in Wyoming
NatureServe ranks the American red squirrel S5, Secure, and it’s native to Wyoming. It remains one of the most frequently recorded small mammals in the state’s conifer country, from the Yellowstone-Teton high country out to the isolated pine stands near Devils Tower.
Full species profile
