SAVING COASTAL MARTENS

Stealthy, cat-sized forest carnivores in the weasel family, coastal martens — aka Humboldt martens — are so rare that they were thought extinct until rediscovered in 1996. Now, due to extensive logging of coastal old-growth forests in Northern California and Oregon — the only places they're found — the martens have been eliminated from 95 percent of their historic range. Other threats to martens abound, including wildfires and loss of genetic diversity due to population separation and a tiny overall population size.

OUR CAMPAIGN

To make sure coastal martens never slip out of human awareness again, in 2010 the Center for Biological Diversity and the Environmental Protection and Information Center (EPIC) filed a scientific petition to protect the species under the federal Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service denied protection.

After a decade of work — including more than one lawsuit by the Center and EPIC challenging the Service for failing to protect the martens — in 2020 these fierce but furry creatures won protection as "threatened" under the federal Endangered Species Act. The next year, the Fish and Wildlife Service designated more than 1.2 million acres of critical habitat in northwestern California and southwestern Oregon as critical habitat for coastal martens.

Meanwhile, in response to a state petition by the Center and EPIC, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has protected the marten under the California Endangered Species Act. Fewer than 200 individuals remain in California.

Saving coastal martens means protecting thei habitat and reestablishing population connectivity. Martens are secretive hunters that only move through dense shrub cover or areas with closed forest canopy, so extensive clearcutting has dramatically fragmented their range, isolating populations in Oregon and California. Throughout the species' range, fewer than 400 individual martens survive, in four very isolated fragments.

Check out our press releases to learn more about the Center's actions for coastal martens.