Camera Snaps Rare Glimpse Of Pacific Marten In Olympic National Forest

WASHINGTON — A motion-activated camera documented a Pacific marten inside the Olympic National Forest for the first time in January, and survey teams discovered the photo in July. Woodland Park Zoo and the U.S. Forest Service teamed up to place the camera station with hopes of detecting the creature, who is native to the area but rarely seen.

According to the zoo, Pacific martens are the size of a small housecat and "semi-arboreal members" of the Mustelidae, or weasel, family, which includes wolverines and otters. Traditionally, the creatures have made their home in the Cascades and Olympic Peninsula.

Officials said the martens used to occupy a larger area on the peninsula, settling from the coastline to the timberline, but overtrapping and habitat decline in the early 20th century significantly reduced their density and pushed them to higher elevations. In the Cascades, zoo officials said martens inhabit the forests and their population appears to be stable.

Over the last 50 years, there have been just two dozen confirmed marten sightings on the Olympic Peninsula. The zoo first partnered with Olympic National Park, Olympic National Forest and the U.S. Geological Survey in 2017 to place cameras equipped with scent dispensers in remote locations, with hopes of attracting martens. The surveys logged just over a dozen detections through 2019.

When a survey team returned to the camera station last month, they discovered several photos of a lone marten that stopped by in early January.

“The long-standing collaboration to better understand the distribution and health of the Pacific marten population on the Peninsula has been building successes over time, and Olympic National Forest staff are very pleased to be a part of such a great team,” said Betsy Howell, a wildlife biologist at Olympic National Forest. “This new record comes as our multi-partner effort begins to comprehensively survey both Olympic National Park and the National Forest for martens.”

Woodland Park Zoo and its partners this year also started a graduate student project at the University of Washington to more extensively survey the martens to help better inform conservation efforts and evaluate potential threats to their survival.