Washington’s 131 Pacific marten records trace the state’s high, cold forests. Pend Oreille County in the Selkirks leads, with Chelan along the Cascade crest close behind, and the named places read like an inventory of Washington wilderness: the Alpine Lakes Wilderness first, then Mount Rainier National Park, Glacier Peak, and the Goat Rocks.
A hunter of mature conifer forest
The marten is a slim, arboreal weasel built for hunting in trees, running down red squirrels and voles through branches, snags, and downed logs. It favors old, closed-canopy conifer forest with a cluttered floor, the structure it needs for denning and for escaping larger predators, which is why Washington’s record sits almost entirely in high-elevation national forest, national park, and wilderness rather than in the lowlands.
Hunting under the snow
Martens do not hibernate. Through winter they hunt beneath the snowpack, diving into the insulated space at ground level where voles stay active, and Washington’s record reflects that year-round presence, with animals logged in every month from the deep-winter Selkirks to the summer Cascades.
Status in Washington
NatureServe ranks the Pacific marten S5, Secure, in Washington, with a global rank of G4. The species is native to the state, and USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
