BILLINGS, Mont.—Endangered species protections may be needed to protect the Northern Rockies fisher, a small fanged predator that once thrived in the region’s old growth forests, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday.
Also Thursday, the government said it will again review the endangered status of wolverines, another unprotected predator in the weasel family that has suffered a long-term decline.
Both animals have been struggling to recover in Northern Rockies states since they were largely wiped out by over-trapping in the 1930s.
Environmental groups had petitioned the government last year to protect fishers under the Endangered Species Act.
Agreeing with most of the groups’ assertions, the Fish and Wildlife Service said it will spend a year studying whether fishers could again disappear from the region without federal protections.
A small West Coast population of the animals was deemed eligible for protection in 2004, although the government said other species had priority. They remain relatively abundant in parts of the Midwest and New England.
Wolverines too, were once common but nearly wiped out by trapping and poisoning by farmers and ranchers. They now range across parts of California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming.
Fish and Wildlife officials rejected endangered species protections for wolverines two years ago. But the agency is now revisiting that decision because of a lawsuit from environmentalists.
Groups of fishers have been reintroduced to the region four times since 1959, but the Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday that logging, residential development and trapping remain significant threats.
Montana allows trappers to harvest a combined seven fishers annually—an activity banned elsewhere in the West.
Members of the weasel family sometimes likened to otters, fishers are agile furbearers that can reach about 15 pounds and nearly four feet long.
They prey on small mammals and birds, and are the only known species to target porcupines.
To kill a porcupine, fishers will repeatedly attack the spiny animal’s unprotected face, wearing it down until the fisher can flip the porcupine over and tear into its soft underbelly.
Agency biologist Beth Dickerson said much remains unknown about fishers and that it was too early to say how the review might turn out or what kind of restrictions on human activities might result.
“It’s premature to say any particular industry or activity would be restricted. Even the trapping, it’s just hinted at now,” Dickerson said.
The formal announcement of the fisher review will be published Friday in the Federal Register.
Defenders of Wildlife estimates that only 500 of the animals survive in Montana and Idaho. There have been unconfirmed reports of fishers living in Wyoming and they may have once roamed as far south as Utah.
Dickerson said she was not aware of any reliable population estimate but that fishers are known to be “one of the lowest density predators in the Northern Rockies.”
Thursday’s Fisher announcement was welcomed by David Gaillard with Defenders of Wildlife in Bozeman, who wrote the petition calling for more help for the Northern Rockies population.
“The main reason they’re not doing well is the old growth in the West is severely reduced and is not coming back very fast,” Gaillard said. He added that outlawing fisher trapping in Montana “would sure help as a first step.”
