US Fish and Wildlife Service designates 1.2 million acres of critical habitat in Oregon, Calif., for Pacific marten

They're cat-sized members of the weasel family; group unhappy timber co. gets 'special treatment'

WASHINGTON (KTVZ) -- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Tuesday it is designating 1.2 million acres of critical habitat in northwestern California and southwestern Oregon for the coastal distinct population segment of the Pacific marten, also known as the coastal or Humboldt marten.

In this final rule, the Service identified critical habitat, or areas that are essential for the coastal marten to thrive based on information received during two public comment periods held in 2022. Final critical habitat land ownership includes approximately 1.1 million acres of federal, 23,724 acres of state and 13,008 acres of private or unassigned lands.

This final rule also identifies approximately 140,705 acres of critical habitat the Service determined as appropriate for exclusion under section 4(b)(2) of the Endangered Species Act. These areas include those being managed under several collaborative agreements with the Service that will provide ongoing conservation efforts for marten.

Two of these efforts include the Yurok Tribe and Green Diamond Resource Company, both of whom have a Memorandum of Understanding with the Service for managing land to benefit the conservation of the species. In addition, Green Diamond has a safe harbor agreement with the state of California.

Critical habitat designation requires federal agencies to ensure that actions they plan to undertake, fund, or authorize do not destroy or adversely modify that habitat. It does not establish a wildlife refuge, allow the government or public to access private lands or require non-federal landowners to restore habitat or recover species.

The coastal marten is a cat-sized mammal in the weasel family that currently exists in four small, isolated populations in forested habitats of northern coastal California and coastal Oregon. The species has lost over 90% of its historical range and was listed as threatened under the ESA in November 2020. Loss of habitat, effects from historic trapping, catastrophic wildfire, and impacts from vegetation management were determined to be key threats to the marten’s survival.

The final rule will publish in the Federal Register on Wednesday May 29, 2024, and may be viewed at this link by searching Docket Number FWS-R8-ES-2020-0151. This rule will become effective on Friday, June 28, 2024.

The ESA is extraordinarily effective at preventing species from going extinct and has inspired action to conserve at-risk species and their habitat before they need to be listed as threatened or endangered. Since it was signed into law in 1973, more than 99% of all species listed under the law are still with us today.

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News release from the Center for Biological Diversity:

Critical Habitat Designated for Imperiled Humboldt Marten

1.2 Million Acres Protected in California, Oregon

PORTLAND, Ore.— Following a court-ordered agreement, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today designated more than 1.2 million acres of critical habitat in northwestern California and southwestern Oregon for threatened Humboldt martens, also known as coastal martens.

“I’m happy that Humboldt martens finally have protection for some of the most important places where they live,” said Chelsea Stewart-Fusek, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “But it shouldn’t have taken multiple lawsuits to get here. It’s also extremely disappointing that the Service continues to give special treatment to timber companies, which are largely responsible for the martens’ decline in the first place.”

Today’s critical habitat designation calls for five units of protected habitat where martens are known to still live. This includes acreage in Coos, Curry, Douglas, Josephine, Lane and Lincoln counties in Oregon, and Del Norte and Siskiyou counties in Northern California.

But in addition to only including occupied habitat, the Service excluded more than 49,000 acres of land owned by the timber company Green Diamond Resources. This is based primarily on a safe harbor agreement it has with the state of California.

The agreement, in part, exempts Green Diamond lands from the critical habitat designation in exchange for monitoring, creation of a 2,100-acre reserve on land that is mostly unsuitable for logging or martens, and a highly speculative proposal to relocate martens to national and state parks.

“Martens are on the brink of extinction, and with most of their habitat lost to logging, their populations can’t expand,” said Stewart-Fusek. “If these animals are going to recover, they’re going to need more than the disconnected habitat fragments the Service just protected.”

Humboldt martens are elusive, cat-sized members of the weasel family. Once common in coastal forests in Northern California and Oregon, the animals were nearly wiped out by logging and widespread trapping. Today, fewer than 400 of these amazing carnivores remain, in just four highly isolated fragments of the species’ historic habitat.

Background

The Center and the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) petitioned in 2010 to list the Humboldt marten as a protected species under the Endangered Species Act, but the Service delayed actually protecting the animal until 2020.

Martens are threatened by the ongoing logging of mature forests, loss of closed-canopy habitat to wildfires, rodent poison used in marijuana cultivation, and vehicle strikes.

Today’s critical habitat designation includes 13,233 acres in the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, where the U.S. Forest Service authorizes annual events where thousands of off-road vehicles drive through and damage marten habitat. In March the Center notified the Forest Service of its intent to bring litigation to protect the marten and its critical habitat in the Oregon Dunes.

California banned trapping of Humboldt martens in the 1940s, but Oregon did not follow suit until 2019 after a petition and lawsuit from conservation groups. The animals have been wiped out from 93% of their historic range.