Wisconsin sits at the eastern edge of Franklin’s ground squirrel’s range, and its scattered records come from the Northwoods around Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, where grassy openings, bog margins, and lakeshore clearings break up the surrounding conifer and mixed forest. That’s a different setting from the species’ core Great Plains prairie, but it offers the same thing the squirrel actually needs: tall grass and brush next to soil deep enough for a burrow.
This is a shy, secretive ground squirrel that spends more time hidden in cover than out in the open, giving a birdlike whistle before it vanishes into the grass. Its deep burrows hold sleeping chambers and food stores that carry it through a long winter underground, and it surfaces only from roughly spring through late summer to breed, raise young, and rebuild the fat it burned overwinter.
All 38 Wisconsin records come from GBIF, concentrated between June and August when the squirrels are active above ground. The gap in records outside that window reflects months spent hibernating below ground, not an absence of animals.
Full species profile
