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The Waning Reign of the Muskrat

Little-appreciated, semiaquatic, and cute-as-hell, muskrats can survive almost anywhere. So where are they?

Muskrats remain fairly common overall—no official population count exists, but it’s safe to ballpark within the millions throughout their range—and in some places, they still thrive, with as many lodges per wetland hectare as there are homes in a leafy suburban subdivision; researchers don’t fear their extinction, but the overall trend is deeply troubling. Many possible causes exist, from climate change to habitat fragmentation to vegetation shifts to disease, but “no one has really proposed a reason that seems like the most likely one,” says John Crockett, a wildlife ecologist and PhD candidate at the University of Rhode Island, where he is monitoring the Ocean State’s muskrats. Laurence Smith, an environmental scientist at Rhode Island’s Brown University who is also studying the state’s muskrat declines, has found compelling evidence that the rodents rarely eat phragmites and tend to avoid areas dominated by it.

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