Apostle Islands Designated Protection Area For American Marten

The Natural Resources Board approved a proposal Wednesday that will create a protection area for the American marten on the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in Lake Superior. The marten is the state’s only endangered mammal.

The Apostle Islands will join two other marten protection areas in northern Wisconsin near Eagle River and Clam Lake. Marten, which are part of the weasel family, have been confirmed on at least seven of the 21 islands.

The protection areas set a closed season for trapping of any animals where the marten may be found.

Scott Karel, the DNR’s wildlife management regulation policy specialist, said the proposal also allows the use of weasel box and foothold traps in those areas.

“These two types of traps will allow additional opportunities without endangering incidental capture of the American pine marten,” Karel said.

The weasel box is a trap with a hole opening that’s too small for any marten to squeeze through. The foothold trap would have to be set with a pan tension of no less than 4 pounds.

“Marten weigh about 2.5 pounds max…. Them stepping on a pan tension device of 4 pounds or greater, it’s not going to set that trap off,” he said.

However, not everyone is convinced foothold traps won’t pose a threat to the marten, including Jonathan Gilbert, director of biological services for the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission.

“I know that martens can and will be caught in foothold traps even if the pan tension is set to 4 pounds,” he said.

Gilbert, who serves on the state’s furbearer advisory committee, supports the designation of a marten protection area on the islands and the use of weasel box traps. But, he feels the foothold traps are an unnecessary risk to the state’s only endangered mammal.

“To me, it just seemed like it was not the right decision to make,” he said.

Karel said the state hasn’t had an incidental capture of marten from trapping in about nine years, and those occurred with the use of body-grip traps that are not allowed in marten protection areas.

“This is a state endangered species. If we thought that this would pose a threat to them, we wouldn’t include it in there,” Karel said. “If we do start seeing more incidental captures, then we can come back and adjust this.”

Numbers of the state-endangered animal are difficult to gauge. Best estimates show there are around 300 marten in the state that reside within the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, Gilbert said. The marten, known as Waabezheshi in Ojibwe culture, is significant to tribes because it’s a clan animal.

“When that clan animal is coupled with being an endangered species, it just elevates the concern that we have for this animal and the care that we should take with fostering it and managing it,” Gilbert said.