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This week’s highlighted visitor: The muskrat!

A mammal you can find near wetlands and ponds, Muskrats are sturdy, semi-aquatic creatures with dense brown fur and long, flat tails. These busy semi-aquatic rodents swim gracefully through the water, using their tails for balance as they search for plants or build their intricate dens along the banks. Their quiet, methodical movements are often interrupted by a sudden splash as they dive below the surface, leaving behind only ripples in the still water.

Muskrat populations in the Northeast have declined by 75 percent. Potential explanations could be that invasive plants such as water chestnuts and phragmites choke out the cattails that muskrats like to eat. Muskrats rely on the roots of cattails for food, and the leaves and stems to build lodges. Another potential explanation is that waterways have become more fragmented. It used to be that if there was a drought and one pond dried up, muskrats would just move to another. But as habitats become more fragmented, populations become more isolated and less able to move about. If the population in a pond dies out, it is no longer replenished.

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