News

Perfect time for a new critter: The fisher
by Tim McNulty

(from Peninsula Daily News, September 28, 2007. Page A-10, Commentary)

Several years ago, I traveled to the Rogue River country of southern Oregon in search of a rare and elusive forest predator.

I was rewarded with my first glimpse of a fisher.

The sleek, mink-like creature cast a brief glance my way from a nearby cedar, crept out a mossy limb and leapt lightly into a nearby hemlock.

I was thrilled.

Fishers have all but disappeared from West Coast forests.

This population, which had been reintroduced by timber companies to control porcupines, was being studied by biologists to see if fishers might be returned to the Northwest.

Now, Olympic National Park and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife have launched a program to reintroduce fishers to Olympic's valley forests. If successful, it will bring these world-renowned forests an important step closer to ecological wholeness.

Fishers are members of the weasel clan, small, reclusive, and covered with lush, sablelike fur.

Their pelts once brought top dollar.

As a result, fishers were trapped out from nearly all of their West Coast habitats by the 1930s.

The logging of the lowland forests that followed sealed their fate.

Small populations exist in southern Oregon and California, and unconfirmed sightings are still occasionally reported on the North Olympic Peninsula.

But after intensive surveys over the past two decades, biologists have concluded that a viable population no longer exists in Washington.

It's not often that agencies have the chance to get ahead of the curve and act proactively to restore a species before it becomes listed as endangered.

But that's the opportunity we have in Olympic National Park.

A 2004 feasibility study confirmed that ample prey and abundant habitat exist in the park.

Fishers prefer mature lowland forests where they den and rear their kits in snags and down logs.

Historically, they were common in Olympic forests.

In a single two-year period in the early 1920s, 57 were trapped in the Queets and Quinault valleys.

The last documented fisher in the Olympics was trapped in 1969.

This month, the park released a plan to reintroduce fishers to Olympic National Park.

A strong donor population still exists in British Columbia, and successful reintroductions elsewhere prove it can be easily accomplished.

The agency proposes a three-year reintroduction of about 100 animals.

Olympic National park was created in part to protect native wildlife communities.

By its directives the National Park Service is obliged to restore missing species where feasible.

And as accomplished predators, fishers would restore an important ecosystem function to the forest community.

We're lucky on the North Olympic Peninsula to have one of the great ecological preserves of the planet for a back yard.

As population increases and climate change begins to alter natural communities everywhere, it's important to have intact, functioning ecosystems that can respond to dramatic change.

Olympic National Park is such a place.

And Olympic's forests, with a key predator returned to the mix, would be one step closer to long-term viability.

A fisher population here could serve as a source for future reintroductions in the region.

And it might help West Coast fishers from tumbling onto the federal endangered species list.

This forward-thinking initiative deserves our support.

The comment period is open through October 10.

Mail comments to: Superintendent, Olympic National Park, 600 East Park Avenue, Port Angeles, WA 98362.

The reintroduction plan can be reviewed at this Web site: http://parkplanning.nps.gov/olym.