The yellow-bellied marmot is Oregon’s big ground squirrel of the high country, and its 1,021 records sit almost entirely east of the Cascade crest. Deschutes and Klamath counties lead the count, Crater Lake National Park alone holds 142, and the rest scatter through the fault-block ranges and lava country of Harney, Lake, and Crook counties.
Rocks to hide in, grass to eat
A marmot colony needs two things side by side: a talus slope or boulder pile with bolt-holes among the rocks, and a meadow within waddling distance. Oregon delivers that pairing from the rim country of Crater Lake through Steens Mountain and the Three Sisters Wilderness, and even on the rock-studded flats of the Oregon Badlands. Marmots spend their mornings and evenings cropping grasses, sedges, and flowers, retreating underground when raptors, coyotes, or midday heat move in.
Eight months underground
The calendar for this species is one of the sharpest in Oregon’s mammal record. Reports run strong from April through July, dwindle to a trickle by September, and stop outright in November. That gap is hibernation. Yellow-bellied marmots spend up to eight months of the year in a plugged burrow, living off the fat they packed on through a summer of grazing, and the young of the year race to grow large enough before the first snows shut the season down.
Status in Oregon
NatureServe ranks the yellow-bellied marmot S4, Apparently Secure, in Oregon, and the species is native to its Oregon range. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous in the state.
Full species profile
