Idaho County, the largest county in the state and one of the least roaded, holds 67 of Idaho’s 104 red-tailed chipmunk records. Most of the rest sit in Clearwater, Kootenai, and Latah. That sketches the species’ Idaho range as neatly as any field guide: the moist conifer forests of the panhandle and the Clearwater country, and not much else. The Nez Perce National Forest is the most reported single block of land. The Gospel-Hump and Selway-Bitterroot wilderness areas add a high-elevation fringe.
The dated records run from April into October, with August and September far ahead of every other month. Chipmunks are conspicuous then, busy cutting and caching seed. Observers are in the woods at the same time, so the late-summer crest mixes biology with effort. The dry southern half of the state was never this chipmunk’s country. Its absence from the record there reflects real range limits, not missing data. NatureServe calls the species apparently secure in Idaho. A record logged as recently as July 2024 keeps the file alive.
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