MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK, Wash. (AP) - The elusive weasel-like mammal poked its head out of the wooden crate, glanced around and quickly darted into the thick forest of Mount Rainier National Park - returning to a landscape where it had been missing for seven decades.
One by one, 10 Pacific fishers that had been trapped in British Columbia were set free at the park south of Seattle as part of a multiyear effort to reintroduce the native species to its historical range.
A large crowd gathered Friday to herald the return of the dark-brown member of the weasel family with its lush fur and bushy tail. "We're correcting something that we mismanaged a long time ago before we knew enough to manage wildlife populations," said Jeffrey Lewis, a biologist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Fishers historically were found throughout much of the forested areas of the West Coast. But they declined in numbers due to trapping in the 1800s and early 1900s, and the loss of forest habitats.
By the mid-1900s they were eliminated from Washington state. The solitary animal, which hunts snowshoe hares, rodents and small mammals, were listed as state endangered species in 1998. They're one of the few predators of porcupines and are found only in North America.
Population estimates of West Coast fishers today are anywhere from a couple hundred to a few thousand, mostly in southern Oregon and Northern California.
But they're slowly making a comeback in Washington through reintroduction efforts involving WDFW, Conservation Northwest, the National Park Service and other partners.
"We feel like we're making headway and we're getting good positive results. It's too early to say that we're establishing a self-sustaining population but it sure is looking positive,"
Lewis said.