Merriam Lake is a lake situated in the

Lost River Range The Lost River Range is a high mountain range of the Rocky Mountains, located in Central Idaho, in the Northwestern United States. It runs southeast for approximately from the Salmon River near the community of Challis to the Snake River Vall ...

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...

, surrounded by mountains over high. In 2007 the state authorities planted tiger muskies in the lake to better manage the fisheries.

Bighorn sheep The bighorn sheep (''Ovis canadensis'') is a species of sheep native to North America. It is named for its large horns. A pair of horns might weigh up to ; the sheep typically weigh up to . Recent genetic testing indicates three distinct subspec ...

and

Mountain goat The mountain goat (''Oreamnos americanus''), also known as the Rocky Mountain goat, is a hoofed mammal endemic to mountainous areas of western North America. A subalpine to alpine species, it is a sure-footed climber commonly seen on cliffs and ...

are the few mammals disposed to this terrain of central Idaho which Dr. C. Hart Merriam identified as

Arctic–alpine An Arctic–alpine taxon is one whose natural distribution includes the Arctic and more southerly mountain ranges, particularly the Alps. The presence of identical or similar taxa in both the tundra of the far north, and high mountain ranges much f ...

when he made a biological survey of the region in 1890.Rust, Henry Judson. “Mammals of Northern Idaho.” ''Journal of Mammalogy'', vol. 27, no. 4, 1946, pp. 308–327
JSTOR website
www.jstor.org/stable/1375338. Accessed 10 Apr. 2020.

References

Lakes of Custer County, Idaho Lakes of Idaho {{CusterCountyID-geo-stub