Forest Co-op Marten Cores Project
Ontario's marten guidelines require the retention of mature and old growth conifer-dominated forest in large blocks (30 to 50 km2) termed cores. Many aspects of the habitat and population ecology of martens are being evaluated by the ongoing Forest Co-op Marten Habitat Program.
The Forest Co-op Marten Cores Project was a component of this larger study and is now completed. It evaluated the importance of core-sized blocks of suitable habitat to marten harvests by trappers and examined the value of trapper harvest data for effectiveness monitoring of forest management guides.
The results of Phase 1 (completed Christmas 2005) and Phase 2 (completed summer 2006) both suggest that the supply of suitable habitat on individual traplines influences marten harvest; therefore, planning at this scale may be important to support high harvest of martens on all traplines. Both Phase 1 (9 years harvest data; 1994-2003) and Phase 2 (1 year detailed harvest and effort data; 2004-2005) of our study failed to support the need for large cores but did suggest that suitable habitat should be arranged in patches at least the size of an average marten home range, or about 5 km2 (500 ha). Detailed harvest effort, age and sex data of trapper-harvested martens did not greatly improve our ability to predict marten harvest from habitat supply.
Final reports for Phase 1 and Phase 2 are now available, and the project team is currently preparing a manuscript of Phase 1 for submission to a peer-reviewed journal. A Phase 2 manuscript is expected to follow later in 2007.