Wyoming holds 306 prairie vole records, and they tilt hard toward the state’s southeast corner. Albany and Laramie counties alone account for 133 of them, with Platte and Niobrara adding 67 more just up the road. That’s the state’s shortgrass and mixed-grass prairie country, and it’s also where small-mammal researchers have worked longest, so the cluster is part habitat truth and part search effort.
An eastern-plains animal in a mountain state
The suggested viewing ground reaches west to Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge, the National Elk Refuge, and the Yellowstone River corridor, all wet-meadow and river-bottom country where dense grass lines the water. The county records tell a plainer story: this is an eastern-plains vole in Wyoming, most at home in the wide grasslands below the Laramie Range. Records from 16 counties show it isn’t confined there, but the mountain basins remain sparsely documented, and sparse documentation isn’t the same as absence.
A September surge
One in three Wyoming records landed in September, with June through August nearly as strong. Vole colonies peak in early fall after a full breeding season, so part of the surge is real: more voles above ground, more runways, more captures. Fall is also when university and agency traplines run, and with numbers this concentrated it’s fair to credit both.
Status in Wyoming
NatureServe ranks the prairie vole S5, secure, in Wyoming, matching its global grade. It’s native and, by plains-state standards, well documented here. The honest caveat is that records are not a headcount: they show a vole that is widespread, frequently encountered, and working its runway systems across the state’s grasslands, which for a prey species this low on the food chain is exactly what a healthy foothold looks like.
Full species profile
