Back in the 1970s when I took Washington State’s game warden test questions like, “Where are geoducks found?” and “What are the best baits to use in a bear live trap?” were pretty good indicators that there would be a lot of learning ahead for this Michigan flatlander if I got the job.

I did some mighty lucky guessing, became a fledgling game warden and ventured onto the educational road in a magnificent new world.

Soon after becoming responsible for the well being of 2,700 square miles atop the Cascade Mountains I was snow shoe exploring in remote high country and cut another set of fresh snow shoe tracks. I followed and soon came to a wooden box looking like some kind of large birdhouse attached to a tree trunk. Hmmm, how weird. Continuing on, the tracks came across another of these strange birdhouses.

Now I was really stumped. I fiddled with the box and found the front hinged open. On the floor inside was a leg hold trap. I’d done a lot of trapping for muskrat, mink and ‘coon but this defied my comprehension. I started double timing it, passing several more boxes, and finally caught up to the guy. I felt pretty stupid when he explained to me he was running his perfectly legal trap line for pine marten which are attracted to any hole in a tree.

I’d vaguely heard of such a creature and was stunned when he pulled one from his pack basket to show me. About the size of a skinny house cat, it was a gorgeously rich golden brown color darkening to black at the tips of its feet and tail and a distinctive cream colored patch on its throat and chest.

Future contact with other trappers rounded out my marten education. Pine marten, officially called the American marten, is a member of the weasel family. Unlike some of its cousins such as mink, weasels and skunks, the marten is an adept tree climber. Its primary diet is voles, mice, chipmunks and even quarry much larger than itself like rabbits. Its agile arboreal abilities also puts the various squirrels and the occasional roosting bird on the menu.

The marten is one of our most habitat specific animals, requiring mature, mostly conifer forests consisting of both live and dead trees and plentiful woody ground debris. Its original range was all across Canada, Alaska and the forested areas of our northern states.
However, we all know that long ago we knocked off our old growth forests with gluttonous abandon, taking the pine marten with them. Here in Michigan the last of the once vast pine forests fell to the saw in the early 1900s. The last report of a marten in the Lower Peninsula was in 1911.  The final remnant martens in the U.P blinked out in the 1930s.

However, marten fur was in high demand, and starting in the 1950s, Michigan attempted to reintroduce them in the Upper Peninsula. The first transplant was unsuccessful but later tries in the 1960s into the 1980s established a minimal marten population in several areas of the U.P. There was also some potential habitat in the Lower Peninsula, specifically the Huron/Manistee National Forest around Baldwin and the Pigeon River National Forest in the northeastern part of the Lower.

In 1985-86, 49 marten were relocated from Ontario to the Pigeon River country and 36 to the Baldwin/Cadillac area. Today the U.P. populations are stable enough to allow very limited trapping. I couldn’t find current marten numbers for the Lower Peninsula but it appears, though the population is far from robust, a few remain in isolated pockets.
It’s unlikely the pine marten will ever be more than a novelty throughout much of its range and especially here in Michigan. They are solitary animals and never prevalent even in the best of habitat. When fur coats became socially incorrect in the 1980s leaving no economical incentive, management interest was dropped like a hot spoon. For the most part martens are now on their own, that is until they make the prestigious endangered species list. Then we’ll start all over again.

Carpe diem.

Larry Lyons writes a weekly outdoor column for Leader Publications. He can be reached at larrylyons@verizon.net