Minnesota muskrat records cluster around the cattail marshes of Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge in the central part of the state and along the slow backwaters of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers through the Twin Cities, where the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area protects long stretches of shoreline. Local ponds and regional parks add records wherever cattails, sedges, and quiet water meet.
A muskrat builds its home two ways in Minnesota: dome-shaped lodges of cut cattail and sedge stems in soft-bottomed marshes, or underwater burrow entrances dug into firmer riverbanks. It feeds mainly on cattail rhizomes, bulrush, and pondweed, and its narrow, vertically flattened tail, not its size, is what separates it from a beaver or river otter sharing the same water.
Records peak in April and May, when muskrats are most active and visible along open banks right after ice-out, and they’re recorded in every month of the year since Minnesota’s muskrats don’t hibernate. The heavier spring count says more about when observers are out along the water than about how many muskrats are there.
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