Dane County dominates Wisconsin’s muskrat records. It holds 544 of the state’s 1,756, close to a third, which says as much about Madison’s lakeshores and its crowd of active naturalists as about where muskrats live. Waukesha, Milwaukee, and Dodge counties follow, each with roughly 95.
Away from the cities, the state wildlife areas fill in the picture. Horicon Wildlife Area, the state-owned southern end of the vast cattail marsh in Dodge County, leads the named places, with Mead Wildlife Area in central Wisconsin second. Crex Meadows in the northwest and Green Bay West Shores both show up too. They’re built on sedge meadow, flowages, and bay-edge cattails, the shallow, plant-choked water where muskrats raise lodges and cut feeding channels.
A November bump
Reports rise from March, top out in April, and fade through late summer. October is the quietest month of the year, and then November more than doubles it. Late fall is when muskrats repair lodges and build push-ups ahead of freeze-up, and leafless marsh edges make that work easy to see. The fall waterfowl season also puts more people in the marshes, which likely adds to the count.
Wisconsin’s muskrats are native, with a NatureServe rank of S5, the most secure category.
Full species profile
