Of Washington’s 1673 yellow-bellied marmot records, nearly all lie east of the Cascade crest, from Spokane County’s 639 south through the Palouse and west into Grant, Chelan, and Kittitas counties. Palouse Falls, Steamboat Rock, and Ginkgo Petrified Forest lead the named places, a roll call of basalt cliffs and rimrock canyons.
A rockpile specialist
A marmot colony needs two things close together: rock for dens and green forage within grazing range. These marmots den in talus, boulder fields, and rocky outcrops, emerging to feed on grasses, flowers, and forbs but never straying far from a bolt hole. The basalt coulees and rimrock of the Columbia Basin supply exactly that pairing, which is why the yellow-bellied marmot is a dry-side animal here, while the wet high country belongs to its cousin the hoary marmot.
Seven months up, five months down
Records pile up from March through June, peak in April and May, then collapse to almost nothing from October through February. Yellow-bellied marmots are true hibernators, underground by early fall after a summer spent fattening, and the spring surge coincides with emergence, when hungry adults and, soon after, newly weaned pups are suddenly everywhere on the rocks.
Status in Washington
NatureServe ranks the yellow-bellied marmot S4, Apparently Secure, in Washington, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
