South Dakota’s least shrew record is a handful of dots on a big map: 15 reports across nine counties, from Dewey and Hughes on the Missouri River west to Fall River at the Wyoming line. No county has more than four.
September stands out with 9 of the 15 dated reports. Early fall is when the year’s young shrews wander and when trap lines catch them, so the spike likely says more about one or two productive surveys than about any September rhythm in the species.
NatureServe ranks the least shrew S2, imperiled, in South Dakota, near the northwestern edge of its range. Just as notable is the record’s age: the most recent report dates to July 2020. That silence doesn’t mean the shrew is gone. It means almost nobody in the state is looking for a mouse-sized animal that lives under grass and leaf litter.
Full species profile
