Biologists to Release 13 Fishers in Olympic National Park Saturday Release will Culminate Three-Year Project to Restore Native Mammal to Olympic National Park
Released: 2/19/2010 5:02:05 PM
U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey
Office of Communication
119 National Center
Reston, VA 20192 / KurtJenkins
Phone: 360-565-3041
CraigBartlett/WDFW
Phone: 360-902-2259
In partnership with: National Park Service, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
Thirteen native fishers will be released on Saturday, February 20 within the Elwha and Quinault valleys of Olympic National Park, capping a three-year restoration project and bringing the total of reintroduced animals to 90. Seven males and six females will be released.
"As we complete the reintroduction phase of this project, we celebrate the many partners who have and will continue to make fisher restoration possible," said Olympic National Park Superintendent Karen Gustin. "Together we’ve come very close to reaching the original goal of releasing 100 fishers in the park, and together we will continue to monitor the
animals and track project success."
Each released animal wears a small radio transmitter, allowing biologists to track and monitor its movements. Biologists continue to monitor 49 fishers released over the past three winters, in addition to the 13 released today. And with the discovery of three fisher birthing dens last summer, biologists determined that three females gave birth to at least seven kits. Other females may also have had young, but locating and verifying fisher dens is extremely difficult and time-consuming in the Olympic wilderness.
"We are excited to see this last group of fishers released into Olympic National Park," said Kurt Jenkins, research biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. "We look forward to continue working with Olympic National Park and the State of Washington to monitor survival and home range establishment of the released animals. With the release phase of the project ending, we will now focus on working with our partners to develop methods to monitor the reintroduction success over the long term."
Fishers are about the size of a cat and are members of the weasel family, related to minks, otters and martens. They are native to the forests of Washington, including the Olympic Peninsula, but vanished from the state decades ago because of over-trapping in the late 1800s and early 1900s and habitat loss and fragmentation. Fishers were listed as a state-endangered species in 1998 by the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission and were designated as a candidate for federal listing in 2004 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Endangered Species Act.
Fisher reintroduction to Olympic National Park is the result of a partnership of agencies and organizations. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) and Olympic National Park are joint project managers and, along with the U.S. Geological Survey, are leading the research and monitoring program to evaluate the success of the reintroduction. The British Columbia Ministry of Environment is actively supporting the effort to capture and import fishers to Washington.
The goal of the three-year project was to release approximately 100 fishers to the Olympic Peninsula to re-establish a self-sustaining population. Seventy-seven fishers have been released so far, in addition to the thirteen to be released tomorrow. Biologists have maintained frequent monitoring of the fisher’s radio collar signals and are continuing to track 49 animals. Despite extensive searching, the whereabouts of six fishers is unknown. Two animals’ radio signals have failed, 16 animals are known to have died and four are presumed to be dead.
"With this last group of fishers, we’re very close to our target of releasing 100 on the Peninsula," said Dave Brittell, assistant director of the WDFW wildlife program. "It’s great to watch these animals blend back into the forests of the Olympic Peninsula and we appreciate collaborating with a great group of people from a number of organizations to accomplish this work."
Non-profit partner Conservation Northwest provides financial and administrative support for the project’s operations in British Columbia and coordinates volunteers who track fisher activity through remote camera stations. Washington’s National Park Fund provides financial support formonitoring the reintroduced fisher population. Other partners and organizations are providing financial or logistical support for management and research tasks.
"This final release culminates a decade of cooperative effort to restore fisher to Washington State," said Dave Werntz, conservation director at Conservation Northwest, "and gives me a sense of what Shaun White felt after landing his spiraling Double McTwist 1260."
Fisher reintroduction to Olympic National Park was examined in an environmental assessment released in September 2007. Nearly 200 comments were received and a Finding of No Significant Impact was signed in November 2007, paving the way for fisher restoration.
Four fisher kits a success story for reintroduced in Olympic National Park
Olympic National Park wildlife experts have announced the first confirmed sighting of young born to a fisher — a weasel-like carnivore that has a luxuriant pelt. The fisher was reintroduced to the park as part of an ongoing effort to rebuild populations of the animal, believed to be extinct in Washington for more than 80 years.
By Lynda V. Mapes
Seattle Times staff reporter
PREVofNEXT
CATHY RALEY. / CATHY RALEY.
Two fisher kits were photographed in 2001 south of Crater Lake in Oregon.
Information
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife:
Olympic National Park wildlife experts have announced the first confirmed sighting of young born to a fisher reintroduced to the park as part of an effort to rebuild populations of the animal, believed to be extinct in Washington for more than 80 years.
Photographs taken in the Elwha River Valley on May 23 by a remote camera captured images of Female Number Seven, her unromantic handle, with a litter of four kits.
It's a spectacular achievement for an animal that usually has litters half that large and who was relocated from her home range in central British Columbia the previous winter.
The confirmed birth marks the critical third and final indicator for a reintroduced animal: It has survived the move; it has established a home range; and now, it has reproduced. "This is great," a clearly delighted Patti Happe, chief of the wildlife branch for Olympic National Park, said today.
The state closed the trapping season for fishers in the 1930s. The weasel-like carnivore has a luxuriant pelt that used to fetch as much as $100 each for trappers. The animals were over-trapped and habitat fragmentation took a toll, leading to extinction decades ago.
The Park Service, along with other partners, began the relocation effort to re-establish viable populations of fishers in the park in 2008, with the move of 18 fishers from central B.C. A second introduction of 31 more animals was made this winter. So far, an estimated 12 animals died, including three killed on Highway 101, and one killed by a bobcat.
That's a pretty good survival rate, Happe said, and the confirmed birth, especially of such a large litter, is encouraging.
"She must be in very good shape to have four kits," Happe said.
Next year, more animals will be introduced to reach a population of 100 relocated animals.
Fishers are thriving in a wider diversity of habitats and on a wider diet than biologists hoped. Radio-collared fishers are being tracked everywhere, from Neah Bay to the Elwha Valley, and as far south as Ocean Shores. They seem to be eating everything from mice to birds; scat is being gathered to determine more about their diet.
Female Number Seven is denning in a large snag not far from where she was released, near Antelope Creek in the Elwha Valley, on Jan. 27, 2008. The photos show her carrying four kits, one at a time. Females often use several den sites, moving kits to dens closer to the ground as the kits become larger and more mobile.
Fishers are native to Washington. Re-establishing them in their homeland helps restore the park to more of a fully functioning, native ecosystem. The last vertebrate species missing from the park's native suite of life is the wolf. No plans for reintroduction are in the works.
The following are two excerpts from the “Implementation Plan for Reintroducing Fishers to Olympic National Park”, published in October 2006 and written by Jeffrey C. Lewis:
“A successful reintroduction would allow important opportunities for research on fishers in Washington. Extirpation prevented any previous opportunities to investigate basic biological and ecological characteristics of fishers in Washington. With additional funding, monitoring efforts could be expanded to conduct research on multi-scale habitat selection, demographics, population genetics, food habits, and dispersal of reintroduced fishers. This research would provide important information for the conservation of fisher populations and habitats on the Olympic Peninsula. It would also help improve the likelihood of recovering fishers throughout their historical range in Washington, and may help guide potential reintroduction efforts elsewhere in the west (e.g., the northern Sierra Nevada and southern Cascades of California, or the Coast Range and Cascades of northern Oregon).”
“A timeline and budget have been developed for a fisher reintroduction to Olympic National Park. They outline the timing and costs for obtaining, transporting, releasing, and monitoring fishers over a 3-year period. The cost of these activities over 3 years is estimated at approximately $200,000/year. The U.S. Geological Survey has provided funding to support a significant portion of the monitoring efforts. Additional sources of funding will be pursued if the proposed reintroduction is approved by the National Park Service.”