[ ENGINE STARTING, FLIPPING SWITCHES, ETC.]
Pilot: Olympia ground morning.
Partenavia 357 … with Charile, southeast bound…
Tower: Runway 1-7, clear for takeoff.
Marty: You want to head for 49 first.
Jeff: Yeah, let's head for her and then get 51 on the way to 60.
JEFF LEWIS HAS SPENT HIS CAREER TRACKING ALL KINDS OF ANIMALS.
BUT TODAY'S SEARCH IS SPECIAL
LEWIS: We've been looking for this one for a long time.
ANIMALS THAT HAVEN'T BEEN SEEN IN THESE MOUNTAINS FOR 70 YEARS.
...AT LEAST, NOT UNTIL RECENTLY.
[ sliding box out of truck]
WHEN LEWIS STARTED BRINGING THEM BACK.
LEWIS: "Who hasn't done one?"
LEWIS: "Can you stand back behind this line and watch
the animal come out?"
LEWIS: It's about the size of an otter.
It lives in the forest.
It's a furry carnivore...
….a beautiful, charismatic, mid-size, somewhat chunky,
weasel.
… KNOWN AS THE FISHER.
LEWIS: And you say fisher everybody goes Kingfisher?
Or are you talking about somebody with a fishing rod?
Or, what are you talking about?
THE FISHERS LEWIS IS TALKING ABOUT ARE RARELY SEEN BY MOST PEOPLE.
NOW HE'S PART OF A GROUP OF SCIENTISTS WHO WANT TO MAKE THEM A MORE COMMON SIGHT ACROSS
WESTERN WASHINGTON—LIKE THEY WERE IN THE 1800S.
BACK THEN, FISHERS RANGED FROM NORTHERN CALIFORNIA TO BRITISH COLUMBIA.
BUT SO DID FUR TRAPPERS.
BY THE MID-1900S, WASHINGTON WAS DOWN TO ITS LAST FEW, WHILE B.C. HAD FISHERS TO SPARE.
LEWIS HELPED BRING FISHERS FROM CANADA TO THE OLYMPIC
PENINSULA FIRST IN 2008.
[ ooohs, aaahs, camera shutter]
LEWIS: We ended up getting 90 that we released there over three years.
LEWIS: And that's looking really positive.
IN 2015, SUCCESS IN THE OLYMPICS...
OPENED THE DOOR TO A NEW RELEASE PROGRAM IN THE SOUTH CASCADE MOUNTAIN RANGE.
BUT IT'S NOT AS SIMPLE AS RELEASING ANIMALS INTO THE WOODS.
LEWIS: We're putting them to the test.
How do they deal with this "I just landed on Mars kind of
scenario"?
SO THEY EQUIPPED THEM WITH TRACKING DEVICES—AND FOLLOWED THEM.
LEWIS: We want to confirm especially early on in a reintroduction that females
are having babies.
LEWIS: If there's enough reproduction that's going to help make that a self-sustaining
population.
[Sound of plane engine returns]
"If you look real close you can see her running through the trees
down there.
Hahaha.
I'm joking."
BY COMBINING BASIC RADIO TECHNOLOGY…
AND LONG HOURS IN A PLANE, LISTENING TO STATIC…
Jeff: thought I heard something...
EVENTUALLY...
LEWIS: You'll hear the Beep, Beep, Beep
( beep, beep, beep....)
LEWIS: Wow we're getting a boomer now.
Guess what that's 88, son of a gun
Woohoo, nice!
….. Oh, you already got her, you already got her, that's all you…..
Jeff: K, hit me!
Marty: 11, 10, 36, 46, point 38...
[Marty reads coordinates]
LEWIS: We can circle right around it and then hit a mark on our GPS and get
a very precise location for that animal at that time.
THEN LEWIS JOINS A TEAM OF OTHER SCIENTISTS AND TAKES HIS SEARCH TO THE GROUND.
[Sound of crunch, crunch, crunch under foot]
THEIR GOAL IS TO TRACK THE ANIMALS TO MORE PRECISE LOCATIONS, AND SET UP MOTION SENSOR
CAMERAS.
IT'S ONE OF THE FEW WAYS TO DOCUMENT WHETHER THE POPULATION IS GROWING.
Tara Chestnut: "We're closer than ever."
CHESTNUT: We had an indication that one of our females was denning and we went out
set up cameras for a two week period.
Chestnut: So we're about 80 yards from
the potential den site that we are looking for.
Lilly's den.
Hopefully.
LEWIS: She's super close this way…..
Hey, guys, I got her super close right over there, she's not far away.
But she's still moving a little bit.
THE SEARCH CONTINUES UNTIL...
LEWIS: Right here, right here.
I just heard her and I have no idea where she was parked.
We might be able to track her back to a tree here.
ELISSA GORDON: We'll try to find a specific tree to focus on and set up cameras
aimed at that potential den tree.
THEY LOOK FOR TELLTALE SIGNS.
LIKE SCRATCH MARKS ON THE BARK.
FUR SNAGGED ON BRANCHES.
AND OTHER CLUES.
LEWIS: They love taking poops on logs.
ELISSA GORDON: Wow, lots of hair on this one.
GORDON: Somebody definitely spent
a lot of time in this tree.
AT THE TOP OF TREE, , THERE'S ANOTHER POSITIVE SIGN:
A CAVITY BIG ENOUGH FOR A FEMALE FISHER AND HER YOUNG, BUT SMALL ENOUGH TO KEEP OUT PREDATORS.
LEWIS: We tracked her right to this area.
I didn't see her go in and out of it.
It could be a den site, it could be a rest site, it could be a nice hole in a tree,
but it's worth checking out.
that's as good a spot as any.
GORDON: We put some cameras that are facing the tree to see if she's coming
in and out and we also put some cameras that are facing outside to see if she's in the
general area.
We're hoping to get some clues.
A MONTH LATER, THEY BEGIN SIFTING THROUGH HUNDREDS OF PHOTOS.
AND MOST OF THEM AREN'T MUCH TO LOOK AT.
CHESTNUT: maybe it's a fissure maybe it's a raccoon.
it's a black brown blob.
THEY GET SHOTS OF MOVING BRANCHES, SQUIRRELS, ELK AND EVEN A BOBCAT.
BUT EVENTUALLY THEY FIND WHAT THEY'VE BEEN SEARCHING MONTHS FOR.
LEWIS: Yep.
That's the one. She's coming down headfirst
and in her mouth she's got a really sizable kit.
CHESTNUT: That's a lot of of kit to handle for that mama.
FOR MOST PEOPLE IT MAY LOOK LIKE ANOTHER BROWN BLOB.
FOR THESE SCIENTISTS, IT'S THE FIRST BIT OF HARD EVIDENCE SHOWING THAT FISHERS COULD
SURVIVE HERE LONG-TERM.
LEWIS: We've seen survival among the ones we've released.
Now we've also got the documentation of reproduction.
It doesn't mean it's ultimately successful, but it's a step in the direction that
you really want.
AND FOR THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST, A STEP BACKWARD — TO A WILDER TIME IN ITS HISTORY.
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