| OLYMPIA — A Pacific marten has been recorded by a motion-triggered wildlife camera, marking the first time the species has been spotted by a camera survey in Olympic National Forest.
Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle partnered with Olympic National Forest last summer to install six motion-triggered camera and scent dispenser stations in the National Forest in hopes of detecting martens, a rare native carnivore thought to be living there in very sparse numbers. A month ago, the survey team returned to the station and discovered multiple photos of a single Pacific marten, which had visited the station in January.
Only two dozen marten sightings have been confirmed on the Olympic Peninsula in the last half century, with half of those attributed to surveys with remote cameras and scent dispensers over the last few years, and all in Olympic National Park.
The Forest Service sent us 3 photos of the small, housecat-sized, member of the weasel family, which also includes wolverines, fishers and otters. We’ve posted one of the photos along with this story on our website at myclallamcounty.com.
Historically, marten populations in Washington primarily occurred in two areas, the Cascade Range and the Olympic Peninsula. In the Cascades, their numbers appear to be relatively stable.
But on the Olympic Peninsula, because of over-trapping and habitat loss in the 1900s, they appear to be gone at lower elevations and dwindling at higher elevations.
In 2017, Woodland Park Zoo partnered with Olympic National Forest and Olympic National Park to conduct overwinter surveys, pairing cameras with scent dispensers programmed to release a small amount of attractive lure on a regular basis.
The project aims to gather enough information about the Olympic Peninsula’s marten population to make informed decisions about marten conservation. |
