The sagebrush vole’s Washington record reads like a map of the shrub-steppe. All 220 records fall east of the Cascades, led by Kittitas, Lincoln, and Adams counties, a small mammal tied so closely to big sagebrush that its range in the state is essentially the sagebrush’s range.
A vole built for sagebrush country
The sagebrush vole is a small, pale, short-tailed vole of the arid interior West, and it uses sagebrush more directly than most mammals: leaves of big sagebrush make up much of its diet, especially through winter when greener forage disappears. It travels a network of runways through the shrub understory and rarely strays far from cover. Washington’s records cluster in exactly that kind of country, from the L.T. Murray Wildlife Area Complex on the western edge of the Columbia Basin north to the Wells-Chelan-Sagebrush Flats wildlife area along the Columbia.
Active all year, easiest to find in early summer
Sagebrush voles do not hibernate, and they stay busy under the snow through the coldest months. Reports build sharply through May and June, when the voles are breeding and moving above ground in open steppe that is far easier to work in early summer than in February.
Status in Washington
NatureServe ranks the sagebrush vole S3, Vulnerable, in Washington, though the species remains secure rangewide at G5. It is native to the state, and USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
