The Olympic marmot lives only on the Olympic Peninsula, one of the few mammals found nowhere else in the world. Washington’s record matches that tiny range exactly: 880 of 974 state reports come from Clallam County, nearly all the rest from neighboring Jefferson, and the whole documented footprint sits inside and around Olympic National Park. The Daniel J. Evans Wilderness, the park’s high-country core, holds the densest cluster of reports by far.
The seasonal pattern is a hibernator’s calendar. Reports are essentially zero from October through March, then surge from May through August and hold into September. That’s when the marmots are above ground and the meadows that hold their burrows are snow-free and full of visitors. The crest says as much about hiking season as about the animals. NatureServe ranks the species critically imperiled within Washington because its entire world is one mountain range, even as the global IUCN listing calls it Least Concern. With a range this small, each summer’s records double as a check on how the colonies are faring.
Full species profile
