Animals & Plants of Mount Rainier National Park
The 33 animals, plants, and fungi you can find at Mount Rainier National Park, with sizes, diets, and whether you should worry. See the full park guide at Mount Rainier National Park.
Mount Rainier is one volcano wearing three plant belts: dense Douglas fir forest low, then subalpine meadows of beargrass and avalanche lily, then bare rock and ice. Hoary marmots whistle from boulder fields beside American pikas, and mountain goats walk ledges that would end most hikers. Black bears and cascade red foxes work the timberline.
Turn this into a game: Play Mount Rainier National Park Bingo →Common questions
Which Mount Rainier animals carry a rule kids need to know?
At Mount Rainier National Park, give space to American black bear, Mountain goat, and Rough-skinned newt. American black bear: Black bears are usually shy and would rather leave than meet you. Mountain goat: A mountain goat looks calm but is a large wild animal with sharp horns, so keep your distance, at least 50 yards, and never get between a goat and its kid. Rough-skinned newt: Never put one near your mouth or an open cut. (per NPS species pages).
What do the loudest residents of Mount Rainier eat?
At Mount Rainier National Park, the most interesting eaters are American pika, Clark's nutcracker, Hoary marmot, and Snowshoe hare. American pika eats grasses, wildflowers, leaves, mountain plants. Clark's nutcracker eats pine seeds, whitebark pine seeds, insects, berries, small animals. Hoary marmot eats grasses, wildflowers, leaves, roots, seeds. Snowshoe hare eats grasses, leaves, berries, twigs, bark, buds, conifer needles in winter. (per NPS species pages).
What is the oddest true fact about Mount Rainier wildlife?
The strangest true thing about Mount Rainier National Park: Subalpine lupine: It is one of the wildflowers that paints the meadows at Paradise on Mount Rainier, where the short summer bloom draws people from around the world. Western toad: It is the only toad species known to occur in Mount Rainier National Park, and park biologists consider it relatively rare and mysterious compared to the park's frogs and salamanders. (per NPS species pages).
Anything here that bites?
Keep away
- American black bear: Black bears are usually shy and would rather leave than meet you.
- Columbian black-tailed deer: Usually calm around people, but they are wild animals, not park mascots.
- Mountain goat: A mountain goat looks calm but is a large wild animal with sharp horns, so keep your distance, at least 50 yards, and never get between a goat and its kid.
- Wolverine: Not a real worry.
Don't touch or eat
- Fly agaric: Poisonous if eaten.
- Rough-skinned newt: Never put one near your mouth or an open cut.
- Subalpine lupine: Do not eat any part of it.
- Western toad: Harmless to touch, but the two glands behind its eyes ooze a thick white poison meant to deter predators, so wash hands after handling and don't touch your eyes or mouth first.
Bites if handled
- American pika: Pikas are harmless.
- Cascade red fox: Not dangerous, but a real problem: some Mount Rainier foxes near Paradise have learned to approach cars and people for handouts, which is exactly why rangers ask everyone not to feed them.
- Douglas squirrel: Harmless if left alone.
- Hoary marmot: Harmless and often curious, sometimes sunning on rocks right beside the trail.
- Northern flying squirrel: No real risk.
- Peregrine falcon: None to worry about.
- Snowshoe hare: None.
Everything else on this page is harmless. What each group means.
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Mammal American black bear
Ursus americanus
The bear you're most likely to meet east of the Rockies, a strong tree-climber that eats mostly plants and comes in black, brown, or cinnamon.
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Bird American dipper
Cinclus mexicanus
A stream-gray songbird that walks along the bottom of cold mountain creeks to hunt, the only songbird in North America that does.
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Mammal American pika
Ochotona princeps
A small round cousin of the rabbit that lives in mountain rock piles at Rocky Mountain, Mount Rainier, and North Cascades, and never sleeps through winter.
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Plant Avalanche lily
Erythronium montanum
A white mountain lily that blooms at the very edge of the melting snow, chasing the snowline uphill all summer as the drifts pull back.
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Plant Beargrass
Xerophyllum tenax
A mountain plant that is not a grass but a lily, sending up a tall creamy plume only every few years, its tough leaves woven into watertight baskets and hats.
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Plant Bigleaf maple
Acer macrophyllum
A Pacific Northwest maple with the largest leaves of any maple, often draped in moss and ferns in the rainforests of Olympic and North Cascades.
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Bird Canada jay
Perisoreus canadensis
A fearless, fluffy gray bird that glues thousands of food scraps into tree bark with its own sticky spit and remembers nearly all of them through winter.
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Mammal Cascade red fox
Vulpes vulpes cascadensis
A rare, high-elevation red fox subspecies found almost nowhere but Mount Rainier's subalpine meadows, in red, black, or mixed cross-colored fur.
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Amphibian Cascades frog
Rana cascadae
A brown, black-spotted frog of cold high-mountain meadow ponds, once common through the Cascades and now vanishing from parts of its range.
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Bird Clark's nutcracker
Nucifraga columbiana
A pale-gray, black-winged cousin of the crow that hides tens of thousands of pine seeds each fall and remembers where to find them again.
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Mammal Columbian black-tailed deer
Odocoileus hemionus columbianus
The coastal rainforest subspecies of mule deer, common on foggy meadow edges from Olympic to Redwood, easy to tell apart by its all-black tail.
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Mammal Douglas squirrel
Tamiasciurus douglasii
A small, loud tree squirrel of West Coast conifer forests, known for cutting green cones by the hundred and scolding every hiker who walks under its tree.
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Plant Douglas-fir
Pseudotsuga menziesii
One of the tallest trees on Earth, not actually a true fir, whose cones carry little three-pointed flaps a Native story calls the tails and legs of hiding mice.
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Fungus Fly agaric
Amanita muscaria
The storybook red mushroom with white spots, found in northern conifer and birch woods. It is joined to tree roots and poisonous to eat.
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Fungus Golden chanterelle
Cantharellus formosus
A trumpet-shaped golden mushroom of Pacific Northwest conifer forests that lives joined to tree roots and trades food with the trees.
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Bird Harlequin duck
Histrionicus histrionicus
A slate-blue and chestnut sea duck that breeds by diving and bracing in fast mountain whitewater instead of calm water.
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Mammal Hoary marmot
Marmota caligata
The big silver-gray ground squirrel of the high meadows at Mount Rainier, famous for the sharp whistle it gives when danger is near.
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Plant Indian paintbrush
Castilleja miniata
A scarlet mountain wildflower that steals water and food from its neighbors' roots, and whose bright color comes from leaves, not petals.
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Fungus Lobster mushroom
Hypomyces lactifluorum
Not really a mushroom at all, but a fungus that attacks another mushroom, turning it lobster-orange, firm, and good to eat.
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Fungus Methuselah's beard lichen
Usnea longissima
The longest lichen in the world, hanging in pale green beards from old rainforest branches, and a winter food for deer and flying squirrels.
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Mammal Mountain goat
Oreamnos americanus
A white, shaggy climber with black horns that lives on the steepest crags and pumice fields high on Mount Rainier, where almost nothing else can walk.
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Mammal Northern flying squirrel
Glaucomys sabrinus
A nocturnal glider of old-growth conifer forests that eats mostly underground fungus and, under a UV light, glows bubblegum pink.
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Bird Peregrine falcon
Falco peregrinus
The fastest animal alive, a crow-sized falcon that folds its wings and stoops on other birds in midair, and a species that nearly vanished before recovering.
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Amphibian Rough-skinned newt
Taricha granulosa
A brown, warty-skinned newt with a bright orange belly that carries enough poison to kill a person, found in ponds and wet forests across the Pacific Northwest.
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Bird Rufous hummingbird
Selasphorus rufus
A copper-orange hummingbird that flies farther, relative to its size, than almost any other bird on Earth, from Mexico to Alaska and back every year.
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Mammal Snowshoe hare
Lepus americanus
A forest hare whose coat flips from brown to white on a clock set by daylight, not by snow, and whose oversized feet work like actual snowshoes.
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Bird Sooty grouse
Dendragapus fuliginosus
A large, dark forest grouse whose male hoots from bare yellow neck patches in spring, then walks itself uphill each fall to spend winter eating conifer needles.
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Bird Steller's jay
Cyanocitta stelleri
A deep-blue mountain jay with a black crest and a loud voice, the campground bird that will eye your sandwich at Yosemite, Sequoia, and Crater Lake.
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Plant Subalpine lupine
Lupinus latifolius
The blue lupine that fills Mount Rainier's Paradise meadows in summer and quietly rebuilds raw volcanic soil by pulling nitrogen from the air.
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Bird Varied thrush
Ixoreus naevius
A ringing single whistle from deep, shaded old-growth forest, and a bird so well hidden most visitors only ever hear it.
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Invertebrate Western tiger swallowtail
Papilio rutulus
The big yellow-and-black butterfly of western streamsides whose caterpillar wears fake snake eyes and flips out a stinky orange horn when scared.
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Amphibian Western toad
Anaxyrus boreas
A stout, warty toad that walks instead of hopping, with poison glands behind each eye, ranging from lowland ponds to mountain lakes across the Cascades.
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Mammal Wolverine
Gulo gulo
The largest weasel-family member, so rare in Washington that a 2020 den at Mount Rainier was its first confirmed wolverine family in over a century.