Vermont’s occurrence records list 133 documented southern red-backed vole sightings, all logged through GBIF specimen and survey data. Camera photos rarely capture a burrowing vole this size, so nearly everything known about its distribution in the state comes from live-trapping work rather than casual sightings.
Cool, mossy forest floor
Records concentrate in the Green Mountain National Forest and the Northeast Kingdom’s boreal woods, both places with the cool, moist forest floor, thick moss, and rotting logs a red-backed vole needs to tunnel through. A smaller scatter of records reaches the Champlain Valley, likely from cooler, shaded woodlots rather than the region’s open farmland.
A July spike, and a forest partner few visitors notice
Records jump sharply in July, the height of the summer field season when small-mammal trapping surveys run most often across Vermont’s forests. Red-backed voles do real ecological work while they forage: they eat the underground fruiting bodies of mycorrhizal fungi and carry the spores through the forest in their droppings, helping spread the same fungi that Vermont’s spruce, fir, and hardwood roots depend on.
Status in Vermont
NatureServe ranks the red-backed vole S5, secure, and it’s native to Vermont. It doesn’t hibernate, staying active through the winter in the insulated space beneath the snowpack, so its numbers in the state depend less on winter cold than on how much cool, undisturbed forest floor remains standing.
Full species profile
