Cuyahoga Valley National Park, the green river corridor between Cleveland and Akron, produces more Ohio muskrat records than any other named place, 262 of them. That one park helps lift Summit County to the top of the county list with 474.
Lake Erie’s western marshes
The next cluster sits on the western basin of Lake Erie. Lucas County ranks second, anchored by Maumee Bay State Park, while Magee Marsh Wildlife Area and Sheldon Marsh Dedicated Nature Preserve add diked and coastal marsh, wide stands of cattail and open water that suit a lodge-building rodent. Inland, Coshocton County posts a surprising 166, and Killbuck Marsh Wildlife Area, a big inland wetland in the Killbuck Creek valley, adds 28 more.
With all 2,430 of Ohio’s records coming from iNaturalist, these hot spots largely trace parks and preserves with busy trails and boardwalks, not a census of where muskrats live.
Why May, not April
Reports build through March and April and crest in May with 517, a few weeks after the April high seen in Michigan and Indiana, then fall by more than half in June. Magee Marsh draws enormous birding crowds for the May songbird migration, and all those extra eyes on the marsh edges may help explain the later peak. Fall brings the quietest stretch, with November the low month.
NatureServe hasn’t assigned the muskrat a state rank in Ohio, so it’s listed as unranked. That means it hasn’t been assessed at the state level, not that anything’s wrong. The species is native here.
Full species profile
