Washington’s occurrence databases hold 390 moose records, compiled from iNaturalist and GBIF, most frequently recorded in the northeastern corner of the state. That’s a records count, not a measure of how many moose actually live in Washington, and this species is genuinely easy to miss across most of the state, since it sits at the southern, western edge of its North American range.
A 20th-century arrival to the northeast corner
Moose are a recent addition to Washington’s fauna. The first confirmed evidence of a resident animal turned up in the Selkirk Mountains in the 1950s, and by the 1970s a small resident group had taken hold in Pend Oreille County after moose wandered south from Idaho and British Columbia. The state’s core range still sits there today, across the Selkirk and Kettle mountain ranges of Pend Oreille, Stevens, Ferry, and Spokane counties, with smaller numbers reaching the north Cascades, Okanogan highlands, and Blue Mountains. WDFW’s most recent survey estimated close to 5,000 moose across that northeastern core.
Records track spring, not deep winter
Reports peak in May and stay elevated through April and June, then fall off through the darker months. That lines up with calving season and the shift to fresh green browse at lower elevations, when moose become easier to spot from roads and trails instead of staying deep in timber or heavy snowpack.
Status in Washington
NatureServe ranks the moose S3, Vulnerable, in Washington, well below its G5 Secure standing globally. That gap reflects an animal still concentrated in one corner of the state and tied to the wet, shrubby forest of the northeastern mountains, rather than holding a wide foothold statewide. USGS NAS doesn’t list it as nonindigenous here, and it’s treated as native to its Washington range.
Full species profile
