Fisher reintroduction finale!
Feb 25, 2010
Reintroduction of Pacific fishers, a small native mammal, to Washington's Olympic Peninsula, comes to a successful finish. The animals will continue to be tracked and monitored by remote camera and radio collar.
Free at last! A fisher launches out of its box, last of a successful reintroduction to the Olympic Peninsula. Photo copyright Paul Bannick
Releases today brought the final count to 90 Pacific fishers successfully relocated from British Columbia for reintroduction back Washington. Conservation Northwest was involved from the start in the visionary return of the native forest hunter, smaller relative to the wolverine, to the Olympic Peninsula.
Most of the freed fishers have survived the ardors of the last three years since the releases began. Several have gone on to give birth to kits, seemingly on the way to an established a reproducing population in these old-growth forests.
"This final release culminates a decade of cooperative effort to restore fishers to Washington State," said Dave Werntz, conservation director at Conservation Northwest, "and gives me a sense of what Shaun White felt after landing his spiraling Double McTwist 1260."
Many helped make the dream reality, together with Conservation Northwest: the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Olympic National Park, Olympic National Forest, the British Columbia Ministry of Environment, British Columbia Trappers Association, Doris Duke Foundation, Lower Elwha Klallam tribe, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington Department of Natural Resources, Washington's National Park Fund and Wildlife Conservation Society.
The next step might well be to reintroduce Olympic fishers to the Washington Cascades, an even bigger step toward fisher recovery in the Pacific Northwest
