Location: Range-wide
Research Type: Review article/questionnaire
Forest Type: All

Author states that the distribution of marten in northwestern N. America is relatively stable. Coastal marten in northern California eliminated around the turn of the century. Prognosis for marten on Olympic Peninsula is poor. In eastern N. America reoccupying much of historical range. Likely extinct on Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Threatened in Newfoundland. Absent from historical range south and east of Great Lakes.

Author discusses disjunct nature of montane islands through most of range below Canada and implications for persistence and reoccupancy of martens in this habitat. No recorded martens for Snowy Mountains (Montana) of 733 km2 and 78 km from nearest population; recorded, persistent populations in Crazy Mountains (932 km2; 36 km from nearest population); and historic, but not present populations in the Tobacco Root Mountains (1120 km2; 18-20 miles from nearest population-the last likely due to human disturbance patterns.

"Marten biologists are nearly unanimous in believing that a distance of more than 5 km of unforested land below the conifer zone is a complete barrier to dispersal."

Managememt Recommendations: "In western areas, naturally isolated populations of American martens in particular are being further subjected to increasing human pressures and land-use changes."

Conclusions
“Traditionally we have connected the dots, so to speak, to establish the perimeter of a species’ distribution, even though it has always been understood that within such a boundary, animals are rarely equally distributed either in time or in space. But it may be more appropriate now than ever before to look more carefully between the dots as growing human populations and resulting land use changes affect the forests used by American martens and fishers in North America.” (70)