OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK — Nearly a dozen fishers leapt out of their cages and into the forests of Olympic National Park on Sunday.
The cat-sized predators — which are native to Western Washington — disappeared from the area decades ago because of over-trapping in the late 1800s and early 1900s, loss of native habitat and fragmentation.
“It is not often we get to see the reintroduction of a species into their native environment,” said Sue McGill, Olympic National Park acting superintendent, at the Altair Campground, where three of the fishers were released.
Six female and five male fishers were released at five sites in the Elwha River and Hurricane Ridge regions of the park.
The fishers were trapped in British Columbia and transported by park and state Fish and Wildlife biologists to Port Angeles.
Through the course of three years about 100 fishers will be released into three different regions of the park, a process which started with the Elwha-Sol Duc region this year.
The Hoh-Bogachiel and Queets-Quinault areas will also be populated in the coming years.
A group of about 10 students from Stevens Middle School showed up to watch the animals bound into the wilderness.
The students are part of the Animal Activist club.
“We thought this would be exciting because they are balancing out the ecosystem out here,” said Kelsey Coffman, a Stevens eighth-grader and co-founder of the club.
Coffman and her co-founder Erin Beard, also in eighth grade, along with a team member Forrest Emmett helped release the animals from the cages.
Active and speedy tree climbers, fishers den in hollow trees and logs.
The animals avoid contact with humans. They enjoy dense forests with extensive overhead canopy and usually avoid open areas.
The fishers are members of the weasel family and are related to mink, otter and marten.
Fishers have a delayed implantation gestation process, so likely most of the six female fishers released Sunday are already fertilized and will be pregnant in a few months, Patti Happe, a park biologist, said.
Once implation takes place there is about a 30-day gestation period and a litter of fishers are usually born during the spring or early summer.
Fishers were listed as a state endangered species in 1998 by the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission.
They were were designated as a candidate for federal listing in 2004 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Endangered Species Act.
Two partner groups, Conservation Northwest and the Washington’s National Park Fund, both pledged money for the release project, which is expected to cost about $200,000 per year.
“The thing that is most exciting for us is to see how this ecosystem will be affected,” said Jasmine Minbashian, public information officer for Conservation Northwest.
She said in past restoration projects in other areas, ecosystems have blossomed, so she looked forward to seeing how the fisher would affect populations of other animals.
The project is also eligible for federal Centennial Initiative matching funds, but it is unclear whether those funds were approved in the recently approved 2008 budget.
Part of the cost of the project is for tracking devices used on the animals.
Females, who will stay within a few miles of their dens, have tracking collars.
The males have either an implanted chip or a tracking collar to find them.
An environmental impact assessment determined that the restoration of the fisher should have minimal to no impact on the areas.
