Groups Fight to Save Rare, Mink-like Carnivore in California, Oregon

A small carnivore related to minks and otters, the coastal marten is found only in old-growth forest and dense coastal shrub in Northern California and southern and central coastal Oregon. Once extensively trapped for their fur, the cat-like animals were once common, but now fewer than 100 of them survive in California, while an unknown, but very small, number are still found in Oregon.

“The science clearly shows that coastal martens are some of the most endangered animals in the United States,” said Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity and lead author of the petition to protect the marten. “Denying protection to the coastal marten is a blatant example of the Fish and Wildlife Service caving to pressure from the timber industry — at the expense of an irreplaceable creature.”

Coastal martens were believed extinct — with 95 percent of their old-growth forest habitat lost and a history of excessive trapping — until they were rediscovered on the Six Rivers National Forest in 1996. In 2009 the first marten to be photographed in recent times was detected in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park by remote-sensing camera.

“It’s unjustifiable that the Service denied protection for the coastal marten,” said Rob DiPerna, EPIC’s California forest and wildlife advocate. “We already nearly lost the coastal marten to extinction, and so now we need to do everything we can to protect this special part of our natural heritage.”

These martens’ historic range extends from Sonoma County in coastal California north through the coastal mountains of Oregon. In Oregon the marten lives in the Siskiyou and Siuslaw national forests.

“This is one of those unfortunate cases where science got streamrolled by political expediency,” said Greg Loarie, attorney for Earthjustice representing the groups. “It’s impossible to reconcile the Fish and Wildlife Service’s own finding that coastal martens are gone from 95 percent of their historic range in California and down to the last 100 individuals with the Service’s conclusion that martens don’t desperately need protection under the Endangered Species Act.”

The extremely secretive animals are known for their slinky walking motion and ferocious hunting skills. Typically about 2 feet long, with large, triangular ears and a long tail, they eat smaller mammals, berries and birds, and are preyed on by larger mammals and raptors.

Photo: USFWS


The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 900,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

Since 1977, the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) has defended Northwest California’s forests and wildlife, including the rare and incredibly adorable coastal marten.

Earthjustice, the nation’s premier nonprofit environmental law organization, wields the power of law and the strength of partnership to protect people’s health, to preserve magnificent places and wildlife, to advance clean energy, and to combat climate change. Because the earth needs a good lawyer.

Press Release: September 1, 2015
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2015/coastal-marten-09-01-2015.html

Center for Biological Diversity
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/