A new southern distribution record for Pacific Marten Martes caurina

Martens in North America are forest-specialist mesocarnivores that are listed by the IUCN with an overall status of Least Concern (Helgen & Reid 2015), but they are often locally a species of conservation concern. Although all martens in North America were previously considered one species, recent advances in genetics show there are two distinct species of martens (Carr & Hicks 1997; Lucid et al. 2020; Schwartz et al. 2020): American Martens Martes americana and Pacific Martens Martes caurina. Pacific Martens inhabit North America from the Rocky Mountains to the West coast of the Pacific Ocean and from the boreal forests of southern British Columbia to the southern terminus of the Rocky Mountains in north-central New Mexico. Martens were historically limited by overharvest from the fur trade, but they are currently more threatened by habitat degradation and fragmentation (Helgen & Reid 2015).