The re-greening of a great park

I only saw them scampering on television, but it was still enough to bring tears to my eyes. Late last month, 14 fishers were released into wilderness areas of Olympic National Park. The Washington Dept. of Fish & Wildlife is now about halfway toward its goal of establishing 100 new animals in the park. Members of the weasel family, fishers are related to otters, minks and martens.

“We’re very pleased at how well the fishers have survived - an 81 percent survival rate is quite high and is very encouraging as we begin year two of this project,” said Olympic National Park Superintendent Karen Gustin.

Fitted with very small radio transmitters, the fishers are returning very useful data on their patterns and choice of habitat. Information that biologists will be bale to use to help them reclaim their territory. Fishers are native to the Olympic Peninsula, but like so many other animals with beautiful pelts, their population was hunted down to zero long ago. The new fishers are legal immigrants from nearby British Columbia, so the adjustment to the harsh winters in the park should be smooth. Indeed, they bounded out of their travel cases through deep snow and into the woods as soon as the doors were opened.

Considerable research and planning went into the project to insure that the reintroduction of fishers would have no adverse effects on other park residents. The video below shows a fisher heading for the hills.

More information, including monthly updates from the radio monitoring program, is available online at wdfw.wa.gov.

I am personally excited, because some of the release locations are in areas where I love to hike.

With any luck, someday I may get to glimpse one of these precious creatures or their offspring. It feels so critical to take whatever extra efforts we can make to rebalance a world that we have sent spinning out of order. It begins for each of us when we turn green on the inside.

contemplations

• What is out of balance in your life?
• What wrongs might you be able to right?
• Are there things that have gone missing from your life that you’d like to restore?
• How could you help efforts like this to re-green the planet?