Utah’s confirmed file on the southern red-backed vole runs to just 8 records, and the geography is the story. Daggett County in the northeast corner holds 3, and Summit, Morgan, Wasatch, and Cache counties, all strung along the Wasatch and Uinta high country, hold one apiece. The lone outlier is Wayne County, far to the south on the high central plateaus. Wasatch National Forest is the one named site on the list.
High forest in a desert state
Every one of those counties shares the same condition: elevation. This is a vole of cool, shaded forest floor, and in Utah that habitat exists only up high, in the conifer and aspen country that rises out of the sagebrush basins. The records map the species near its southwestern limit, hanging on where the mountains keep the ground cool. The wetland ground that draws Utah’s wildlife watchers, the Great Salt Lake marshes, Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, and Ouray National Wildlife Refuge, sits far below the habitat this animal uses, and none of it has produced a confirmed record.
Imperiled at the range edge
NatureServe ranks the species S2 in Utah, imperiled, a guarded grade for a vole that is secure across its full range. The dated records all fall between June and September, which reflects high-country access and trapping season as much as the animal; a vole that stays active under winter snow wouldn’t truly vanish the rest of the year.
Full species profile
