 |
Camping & Wilderness |  |
Parks & Conservation |
 |
Wildlife & Biodiversity |
 |
Monitoring the Environment |
 |
Fishing |  |
Hunting & Trapping |
 |
Education & Youth |
 |
Publications, Maps & Data |
Marten
Environment Yukon Image
Page Index:
The Species: Martes Americana
With its sharp, furry face, stand-up ears, black whiskers and long bushy tail the marten looks somewhat cat-like as it moves gracefully across the forest floor. Overhead, a great horned owl circles in the twilight sky. A master at "weaseling" out of harm's way, the marten takes cover in a hollow log. Then, when a red-backed vole scurries past, the marten darts out for a meal of its own.
Distribution
The marten makes its home in mature forests where its favourite food, the northern red-backed vole, is abundant. In the Yukon, climax stands of spruce support marten populations as far north as Old Crow Flats.
A combination of natural barriers such as mountain ranges, large lakes and large burn areas resulted in an area with few marten in the southwest Yukon. Suitable patches of forest capable of supporting marten existed in the area, but they had nearly disappeared -- possibly from overtrapping. In recent years, government biologists have introduced marten into this area with the hope that a viable population will eventually re-establish itself.
Characteristics
Marten found in the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Alaska are almost twice as large as marten that inhabit southern areas of North America. About the size of a house cat, the average male marten weighs 1,400 grams. The female is much smaller.
A Yukon marten's rich fur can vary from pale buff to dark brown with a patch of orange fur at the throat. This member of the weasel family has large, furry feet and semi-retractable claws that function equally well on soft snow or hard trees.
Like the wolverine, mink, ermine and other members of the weasel family, the marten has scent glands that it uses to mark its territory or attract a mate. The scent glands are located under its tail and on its belly.
A Year in the Life
The marten loves its own company. About the only time you'll see two or more marten in one place is during mating season, or while a mother is raising her young.
Usually, but not always, a marten will stake out a home range. In the Yukon a male's territory covers about six square kilometres. A female requires less space -- about four square kilometres. Generally the home ranges of male and female marten overlap, but marten of the same sex never share a territory.
In July and August, when the summer sun circles around the Yukon sky, male and female marten are at their peak of sociability. This is the mating season and a female marten will venture outside of her home range in the company of a mate. The female's heat period normally lasts for about two weeks. Males are sexually active for several months.
Shortly after the eggs are fertilized, they stop developing. The embryos float in the uterus for five or six months before they implant in the uterine wall and continue their development. This phenomenon is called "delayed implantation", and is common to most members of the weasel family.
Summertime living is easy for the marten. Predators are few and food is plentiful. The Yukon's spruce forests teem with the red-backed vole. Trees are filled with birds and bird eggs. Crowberries, a staple of the Yukon marten's summer diet, grow in clearings or at the forest edge.
Despite this generous bounty, the marten does not put on extra fat to see it through the winter. So, all winter long, it must continue to search out food supplies. If red-backed voles are not available, the marten will switch to other winter foods including moose or caribou carrion, grouse, ptarmigan and snowshoe hare. When snowshoe hare are at the peak of their cycle, the marten will alternate its diet between voles and hare.
Hares are large animals compared with other marten prey, but they are no match for the marten's superior hunting skills. When a marten stalks a hare, it follows in the hare's zigzag tracks, but then cuts across in a straight line and closes in for the kill. Fortified with this feast, the marten may hole up in an underground den for days.
The marten's need for food keeps it on the move but it takes frequent rests to conserve energy. It will often travel along runways under the insulating snow to hunt or to find a warm cavity in a hollow log or tree stump. Marten will often take shelter for a few hours in a squirrel midden, one of its preferred microhabitats.
Young are born in the spring of the year, in March or April. The female marten makes her natal den in a hollow log or stump, in a pile of brush, or in a rock slide. On average, there are two-to-four kits to a litter. After six to seven weeks they are weaned, and by 16 to 20 weeks the kits are full grown and ready to strike out on their own. As northern days grow warm and long, the mother marten evicts her young from the family home. She's ready to breed again, and the young marten venture off to establish their own home range.
Mixed-age spruce forests are the best marten habitat, but older marten usually occupy these areas. Juveniles that cannot find a vacant territory may take up residence in areas that are less ideal -- at the forest edge, for example. They may also remain transient, wandering for part or all of their lives.
Marten and People
The Yukon's First Nations have always appreciated the marten's great beauty. They used marten skins to make the fur robes of higher-class persons. "Wealth woman", a mythical figure known to the Tagish, Tutchone and Tlingit people, wore such a garment.
The marten is considered by many trappers to be the bread and butter species. In many ways it is one of the most cost-effective furbearers to trap. Because it is curious, the marten is also one of the easiest animals to trap, which makes it vulnerable to overharvesting. To avoid this problem and keep populations high, Yukon trappers are using modern trapline management techniques.
Although present-day marten populations are stable in the Yukon, expanded clear-cut logging operations could affect marten habitat. Destruction of the forest habitat, more than any other factor, has caused the marten to disappear from much of its historic range in North America.
Viewing Opportunities
If you go looking for a marten there's a good chance you won't find one. Furtive and secretive, the marten leaves few signs of its presence in the forest. But, if you live in the forest, a marten may find you. It's a bit of a camp robber. It also has a sweet tooth. If you're camped out in the woods, you may find one poking its nose in your jam jar. Daybreak and twilight hours are best for marten viewing.