Humboldt marten (martes caurina humboldtensis) populations are bound between the pacific ocean, large rivers (e.g., umpqua and klamath), recent fire footprints (e.g., klondike, slater), and areas of…

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service awarded a $533,283 Project Grant under the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund (CFDA 15.615) to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) to support conservation efforts for the state-endangered and federally-threatened Humboldt marten. The key objectives are to: 1) assess the reliability of non-invasive genetic surveys (e.g., detection-dog scat surveys) for estimating marten demographic rates and population trends, 2) evaluate best practices for field-level marten surveys, and 3) characterize marten home range composition and configuration in relation to forest openings. The grant co-investigators include CDFW, the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement (NCASI), and Oregon State University's Levi Lab, who will contribute expertise in conservation genomics and landscape-scale marten ecology. The project aims to develop tools and techniques to support long-term, synergistic marten population monitoring and conservation planning, in alignment with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's recovery objectives for the species.

Humboldt marten (martes caurina humboldtensis) populations are bound between the pacific ocean, large rivers (e.g., umpqua and klamath), recent fire footprints (e.g., klondike, slater), and areas of intensive forest management, creating unique management challenges for this rare forest carnivore. Although surveys addressing distribution and population size are in progress, the capacity to efficiently estimate population trends is currently unavailable. Further, because of humboldt martens limited distribution and presumed low detectability, methods for compiling data are challenging land managers and regulatory agencies. Combining data among biologists using differing methods is less than ideal and there is a need to establish methods that can grow into long-term synergistic data sets, rather than disparate and small-scale surveys. Tools are needed to address these challenges through a broader network, such as biologists consistently collecting and compiling meaningful data regarding population status. In turn, california department of fish and wildlife (cdfw) and US fish and wildlife service (USFWS) could incorporate these new data to assess recovery goals and establish long-term monitoring protocols and goals. Relative to humboldt martens, the grants CO-principle investigators propose to 1) test whether and to what extent non-invasive genetic surveys (e.g., detection-DOG scat surveys) can reliably estimate demographic (survival and reproductive) rates necessary to evaluate population trends, 2) evaluate and inform best practices for practitioner-level surveying, and 3) summarize composition and configuration of home ranges focused on the size and distribution of used versus avoided openings (e.g., fuels treatments, timber harvests, fire, large rivers) to serve as a metric of future conservation planning. Although these objectives seem unconnected, each requires understanding how martens are using the landscape and interacting with survey devices (e.g., global positioning system-collared animals interacting with cameras). The grants CO-investigators include katie moriarty and her team (national council for air and stream improvement, INC ncasi ), scientists who use fine-scaled data for management actions and the levi lab at oregon state university (OSU), a lab making ground-breaking strides in conservation-related genomics . Ncasi, rocky mountain research station (rmrs), and OSU, the grant CO-investigators, will contribute to advances in recovery within the USFWS outline (USFWS 2021) by providing tools for assessing and conserving current humboldt marten populations, including working in areas that can inform future and currently proposed fuel reduction treatments (recovery objective 2), gathering basic population information (recovery objective 1), increasing understanding of gene flow (recovery objective 3), and focusing on marten survival to estimate the role of potential competitors and predators on demographics (recovery objective 5). Ncasi, rmrs, and OSU will further promote humboldt marten conservation by evaluating how much survey effort would be needed at spatial scales relevant to land managers, creating tools and techniques for consistent and efficient non-invasive surveys, and investing time in outreach and education through scientific presentations, mentorship of employees and undergraduates, and collecting high quality video footage for presentations, documentaries, and outreach.