Wisconsin is the northern rim of the woodland vole’s range, and the state’s 14 records come with an odd center: Clark County, in the middle of the state, holds nine of them. A few more come from Vilas County in the northern lake country and from Sauk and Richland in the driftless southwest. That scatter across such different country hints the vole may be more widespread than the record shows, and simply missed.
Reports bunch in August and September, which likely says more about when trappers work than about when voles move. An animal that tunnels through forest litter all year doesn’t have an off season; its observers do.
NatureServe ranks the woodland vole S2, imperiled, in Wisconsin. For a creature this hard to detect, that rank leans heavily on how few records exist, which makes every new find consequential. The most recent came in 2025, so the story is still being written, one trap line at a time.
