Rhode Island’s woodland vole record is small but tidy: 14 reports split between Washington County along the south coast and Providence County in the north, with a single find in Kent County between them. Named spots include Snake Den State Park and the Arcadia Management Area, both holding the mature deciduous woods this vole needs.
Records arrive from May through September, cresting in July. Since woodland voles live under leaf litter and rarely surface, each of these represents a deliberate catch, a trapper’s find rather than a chance sighting, and fourteen such finds can’t support strong claims about seasons or strongholds.
NatureServe marks the species SU, unrankable, in Rhode Island: too little information for a conservation rank. That’s an honest call for a secretive animal in the country’s smallest state, where one thorough small-mammal survey could double the known record. The wooded refuges and management areas in the south and west are the obvious places to look.
