Glacier National Park accounts for 1,098 of Montana’s 1,934 Columbian ground squirrel records since 2000, a dominance no other place in the state comes close to. Some of that is real density, since the park’s open meadows and road shoulders are classic colony ground, and some is sheer observer traffic along the park’s famous roads. Glacier and Flathead counties together hold more than 1,200 reports, with Madison, Missoula, and Ravalli counties carrying the record down the western valleys. Eastern Montana, by contrast, is nearly blank, which matches the species’ preference for mountain and intermountain country.
Seasonality here is the animal’s own rhythm. Reports surge from April into a June-through-August peak and all but vanish from September to March, tracking the squirrels’ short active season between long hibernations. NatureServe calls the species secure in Montana, and the sheer breadth of the record, 21 counties with reports, supports that. The honest caveat: this is where people watch squirrels, not a census of colonies.
Full species profile
