Published 4:00 pm Tuesday, September 1, 2020
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has finalized its decision to list the Humboldt marten as a threatened species, though it will exempt certain land management and firefighting activities from other restrictions imposed under the law.
Humboldt martens are small, carnivorous mammals that live in coastal forests of Oregon and Northern California. Officials estimate there are fewer than 400 martens left in four isolated populations.
Environmental groups petitioned to protect the species in 2010, citing habitat loss and fragmentation caused by logging and wildfires. According to the USFWS, the Humboldt marten has lost more than 90% of its historical range.
Initially in 2015, the agency concluded that listing the marten under the Endangered Species Act was not warranted. The Center for Biological Diversity and the Environmental Protection Information Center sued, and in 2017 a federal judge ordered the decision to be reconsidered.
The USFWS came back with a second proposal in 2018, this time to list the species as threatened based on a number of population threats including habitat loss, catastrophic wildfires, climate change, vegetation management, exposure to toxins, predators and vehicle mortality.
Jenny Lynn Hutchinson, a botanist and wildlife biologist for the agency based in Arcata, Calif., said the combined impacts were enough to warrant listing the Humboldt marten as threatened.
“For marten, we used a term of 60 years,” Hutchinson said. “Looking (ahead) 60 years from now and what future conditions might look like, it’s not likely to become extinct right now, but it could become endangered in that time.”
The 2015 analysis was based on information they had at the time, Hutchinson said. Biologists used a habitat model to estimate the marten population, though additional surveys conducted in Oregon showed that numbers were “quite a bit” smaller than previously thought, she said.
Quinn Read, Oregon policy director for the Center for Biological Diversity, said the ESA protections will offer a pathway to recovery for the Humboldt marten.
“It’s about time Humboldt martens got the protections they so desperately need,” Read said. “We are perilously close to losing this incredible species forever.”
As part of the agency’s decision to list the marten as threatened, it also issued a special rule under Section 4(d) of the ESA allowing landowners to continue forest thinning and firefighting projects they argue will benefit the species in the long run.
The rule provides six total exemptions, including forest management activities that are designed to reduce the risk of wildfires — such as clearing hazardous fuels and maintaining fuel breaks.
Paul Henson, Oregon state supervisor for the USFWS, said the rule is an example of how the agency can protect species without unduly burdening private landowners.
“By allowing flexibility for certain routine forest management activities that benefit coastal marten populations, this strengthens our public-private partnership in Oregon and California around many forest species,” Henson said in a statement.
The agency is also working with California State Parks, the Yurok Tribe of Northern California and Green Diamond Resources Co., which owns and manages working forestland in California, to develop agreements on marten conservation strategies under each organization’s individual land management practices.
Sara Duncan, a spokeswoman for the Oregon Forest and Industries Council, a trade association representing forestland owners and forest products manufacturers, said including the 4(d) shows how regulators can collaborate more with stakeholders to avoid lawsuits and conflict under the ESA.
“We believe positive gains in habitat as well as recently passed ODFW conservation measures should have made this decision unnecessary,” Duncan said. “That being said, we are encouraged by the (USFWS) trend to work collaboratively with landowners for the benefit of protected species while keeping forests working to provide immense environmental, social and economic benefits.”
