Joining the Exchange is George Sexton, Conservation Director at KS Wild. The issue: The southern Oregon/northern California Pacific Fisher has been seeking protections under the Endangered Species Act, which requires being listed by U.S. Fish and Wildlife. The latest ruling strikes what might be a final blow to efforts to access funds and legal protections for the Pacific Fisher.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has denied listing for the Northern California/Southern Oregon population of Pacific fishers. Fishers are relatives of mink, otters, and martens. Fishers once roamed West Coast forests from Southern California through British Columbia, however trapping and habitat destruction have reduced the species to two native populations: one in Southern Oregon/Northern California one in the Southern Sierra Nevada mountains.
Conservation groups including EPIC, the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center and the Center for Biological Diversity first petitioned to list the species in 2000. Consideration of that petition has been repeatedly stalled. Getting the Pacific Fisher listed on the Endangered Species List is a crucial step toward applying for federal funds needed to support efforts to protect the species and implement a recovery strategy.
The Pacific Fisher is under threat from numerous stressors, each compounding the effects of the other: climate change, including larger and more severe wildfires; rodenticide exposure; logging of the mature forest habitats required by the species; and enhanced predation from changes to forest ecosystems.
