Oregon’s Washington ground squirrel record is 23 entries deep, and it fits almost entirely in two counties. Morrow holds 17 and Umatilla 6, the big sagebrush and wheat country south of the Columbia River. That northeastern corner holds the state’s documented share of a species centered across the river in Washington’s Columbia Basin. The record is thin enough that every verified colony matters.
The calendar matches the animal’s life. Reports run from February through June, peak in April and May, then stop. These squirrels spend the hot months and the winter alike underground. They’re visible for barely a quarter of the year. NatureServe ranks the species imperiled in Oregon, and the IUCN lists it as Near Threatened rangewide. With so few Oregon points on record, the line between ‘rare’ and ‘rarely searched for’ stays blurry. The conservation grades make any sighting in the Boardman-to-Hermiston country worth reporting.
Full species profile
