Washington’s least chipmunk record belongs entirely to the dry side. All 37 records fall east of the Cascade crest, with Kittitas County holding 20 of them and the rest scattered through Spokane, Yakima, Chelan, Okanogan, Pend Oreille, and Garfield counties, a map of open pine forest and shrub-steppe rather than the wet coastal woods.
The smallest chipmunk in the driest country
The least chipmunk is the smallest of the chipmunks, a slim, pale-striped ground squirrel that weighs barely an ounce or two. It eats seeds, berries, and insects, stuffing its cheek pouches and caching food in and around its burrow. In Washington that ties it to ponderosa pine edges, sagebrush flats, and rocky slopes, the country around the Wenas and L.T. Murray wildlife areas and the open ground at Mount Spokane and Riverside state parks.
A winter spent underground
Least chipmunks hibernate through the cold months, waking now and then to eat from their caches, and the Washington record matches that rhythm: nothing from December through February, then a quick rise in March, a May crest, and activity tapering again by October.
Status in Washington
NatureServe ranks the least chipmunk S4, Apparently Secure, in Washington, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
