Defenders' Experts
Fisher Management and Policy
In both the Northern Rockies and the West Coast ranges, Defenders is working to secure adequate federal protections for fishers and their habitats, actively influencing policies and decisions affecting them—such as trapping in Montana, or logging on private lands in California—and preparing for changes to fisher habitat caused by climate change.
Federal Endangered Species Act Protections
In April 2004, in response to a petition and subsequent legal action by conservation groups, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service completed a year-long status review on the Pacific Fisher and determined that it is warranted for listing under the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”), but listing the species is precluded by other conservation priorities. Thus, fishers in their West Coast range (California, Oregon, and Washington) are “Candidates” for listing. Defenders works alongside other conservation groups to ensure fishers and their habitat continue to be protected during this interim status.
In February 2009, Defenders and three other conservation groups submitted a petition to list fishers in the Northern Rocky Mountains under the Endangered Species Act. In April 2010, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service responded to the petition with the initial determination that ESA protections “may be warranted” for fishers in the northern Rockies. This triggered a more detailed status review by the agency, which we expect to be completed in Spring 2011.
Biologists consider fishers to be the rarest carnivore in the Northern Rockies. They may not continue to survive without a targeted recovery program. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service denied a previous ESA petition in the 1990s, due to the belief that fishers were connected across all of North America through fisher populations in Canada, which we now know to be false. Not only are fishers in the Rockies and Northwest U.S. isolated from Canadian populations by more than one hundred miles, the Clearwater area of north-central Idaho was found to contain the remnants of a native fisher population that is genetically distinct from fisher populations elsewhere in North America. Defenders and our co-petitioners seek to protect this population, as well as restoring fishers and their habitat across the region necessary to ensure their survival. The four petitioners include Defenders of Wildlife, Friends of the Clearwater, Friends of the Bitterroot, and Center for Biological Diversity.
Read the petition and the attachments filed.
Read the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) initial “may be warranted” finding (PDF) and announcement of a detailed status review in response to our ESA petition.
Read Defenders of Wildlife’s press release in response to the FWS’ preliminary finding.
Regional Conservation Strategies
Defenders of Wildlife is part of the Coordination Committee of the Pacific Fisher Working Group which includes agency biologists, timber companies and fisher scientists. This coordination committee ensures communication and integration of efforts on southern California Forest Service lands, other California lands and throughout the western range of the Pacific Fisher.
We are also members of the Stakeholder Representatives and Science Advisors for the Southern Sierra Fisher Assessment Project. The focus of this work is to analyze the current status of fisher habitat in the Sierra Nevada and to forecast likely effects of management actions such as fuel treatments and other disturbances (wildfire) on fisher habitat and populations. The ultimate products of the work will be habitat models and other tools that may be used by forest managers to assess the likely effects of forest management projects on fishers. Models of fisher habitat quality at both finer and coarser scales will be coupled with a vegetation dynamics computer model (LANDIS-II).
Finally, we are closely monitoring the development and implementation of the interagency Fisher Conservation Assessment and Strategy, a regional analysis of the fisher’s status and needs throughout its West Coast range.
Protecting Fishers in our National Forests
The vast majority of fisher habitat in the West occurs in our national forests, which are managed by the U.S. Forest Service. Thus, Forest Service plans and policies are tremendously important for fisher populations throughout the Sierra Nevada, Cascades, and Northern Rockies regions. Defenders is scrutinizing the science and justification for Forest Service policies, as well as the effects adaptive management strategies and climate change may have on fisher conservation.
Defenders participates in the Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management Plan technical committee to discuss adaptive management’s impacts on the fisher.
In March of 2007 Defenders participated in the scoping study for the Forest Service’s Sierra Nevada Forests Management Indicator Species (MIS) Amendment and submitted formal comments on this process.
Protecting Fishers on Private Lands
The US Fish and Wildlife Service is exploring entering into Candidate Conservation Agreements with Assurances (CCAA’s) with private landowners to provide more fisher habitat in the Sierra Nevada. These agreements must go through NEPA and thus have a public comment period on projects where Defenders can provide input. All successful CCAA’s for non-federal property owners will be analyzed by Defenders as to their reliance on sound science and their potential to mitigate for the other negative affects their land-use practices may have on the fisher. Learn more about CCAAs.
Draft CCAA for Fisher for the Stirling Management Area 
(10/3/2007)
The purpose of this CCAA is for Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI) to implement conservation measures for fisher in California. The conservation measure consists of management of fisher denning and resting habitat on SPI lands in the Sierra Nevada.
Defenders comments on the draft CCAA (11/9/2007)
Read Defenders' comments on the draft CCAA.
Impact of Climate Change on Fishers
Climate change poses a significant challenge in the conservation and management of fishers. Defenders is committed to promoting and distilling the climate change science and its ramifications for managing this species in an uncertain environment. For example,one result of climate change may be to increase the frequency of catastrophic wildfires throughout the fisher’s range, which may reduce the older, cavity-bearing trees they need for denning.
Defenders is a member of the Climate and Conservation Group in conjunction with the Pacific Forest Trust, which looks at how to promote the goals of the conservation community in the state of California’s developing climate policy.
Because this group focuses on climate policy at the state level and also works on the ground, it is hoped that information gleaned will help inform Defenders’ fisher conservation work.
Learn more about Defenders' climate change work.
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