In this photo shot Dec. 21, 2008 and released by the National Park Service, a female fisher runs across a snow field after being released in the Sol Duc Valley of Olympic National Park, Wash. Wildlife officials reintroduced 90 fishers to the Olympic peninsula a few years ago, and are now preparing a plan to possibly reintroduce more of the cat-sized, forest-dwelling carnivores to Mount Rainier and North Cascades national parks as early as 2015. The fishers, which feed on small mammals, including snowshoe hares, mountain beavers and porcupines, have been missing from the region since the mid-90s. (AP Photo/National Park Service, Janis Burger)
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is working with the National Park Service to reintroduce the fisher to its historic range in Western Washington, and comments from the public are currently being accepted.
Officials are pushing the reintroduction because they say the fisher would not come back to its former range on its own.
The roughly 3-foot-long dark weasel was driven to extinction in its native habitat by trappers roughly 80 years ago. It was considered absent from Washington by the mid-1990s and the state formally listed it as endangered in 1998. Now, after a successful reintroduction on the Olympic Peninsula, WDFW wants to bring in another 160 animals over the course of four years first to the southern Cascades and later to the northern Cascades.
Introduction of 80 fishers in the first two years will take place in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest around White Salmon and up through into the Longmire and Ohanapecosh areas.
“Forty per year is the hope,” said Elly Boerke, project planner and environmental protection specialist for the North Cascades National Park Complex. “The idea is that’s a lot of animals to be removed from one ecosystem, and we’re hoping to learn from the introduction efforts from the previous two years. Once we believe it’s been successful in Mount Rainier, then it’d be in the North Cascades National Park.”
The animals won’t be solely put into the parks. For example, of the 80 planned for the Southern Cascades, only 15 would be introduced back into Mount Rainier National Park; the remaining 65 will go into the national forest, according to Jeff Lewis, a mesocarnivore conservation biologist for Washington state.
If everything goes according to plan, the fishers will be caught by trappers in central British Columbia and sold to the state for $500 per animal. Those animals’ genetics most closely resemble the fisher that inhabited Washington. However, a recent Canadian Supreme Court decision that granted first nations new power over how the government manages natural resources could jeopardize WDFW’s plan to bring the fisher down from British Columbia.
“It’s a wait and see game, but it’s getting closer and closer to our drop dead point,” Lewis said.
Lewis said trapping season in Canada begins Nov. 1. In a perfect world, the fishers could be arriving to the Gifford Pinchot in the middle of November.
“But that’s very perfect,” he said. “We’ve got all kinds of hitches. There’s a fair amount of uncertainty in there.”
The state wants to at least have some in by January, but it might take longer than that still. Public comment is being sought on the plan and that could have a big effect on how and when the introduction happens.
Officials say the comments are important because they allow them to discuss particular elements and plan alternatives, spot bad information, highlight legal issues and address land use issues with the public. Comments are being taken right now until Oct. 15.
To comment on the plan or for more information, visit www.parkplanning.nps.gov/RestoreFisher.
Written comments can also be mailed or hand delivered to Superintendent’s Office, ATTN: Fisher EA, North Cascades National Park Service Complex, 810 State Route 20, Sedro-Woolley, WA 98284.
