Mike (the owner of the Baranof Wilderness Lodge) warned me this fall that they had had a lot of trouble with martens getting into the lodge and boats. Now that it's started to snow, we are seeing marten tracks everywhere. The other night, I heard a thud coming from the "cold room", a mudroom we use as a walk in refrigerator. I opened the door to check it out and there was a marten who alternated his gaze between me at the door and the plate of halibut burritos that he had knocked off the shelf. I chased him out, but noticed a few days later that 4 hard boiled eggs were missing from a chewed up carton. That was bad enough, but I went to make a burrito yesterday and found the whole costco bag of tortillas was missing. We're taking care now to make sure that the persnickity latch on the cold room door catches when we close it.
This good looking guy has cruises our dock every morning. When Jen came down to take some photos, he squeezed through a little crack in the decking and waited her out.
This little guy jumped up on the rail to see if there was anything that looked good to eat inside.
Our friend Christine runs a little store over at the townsite. She had a group of martens move in and make a big mess last winter. She had a lot of work done to marten-proof the building, but we have discovered there are at least three martens now living inside. We can't figure out where they're getting in and out. We haven't been able to find any of the live traps rumored to be in town, so Amazon.com has one on the way to Harris Air. In the meantime, there is a home made version we've been using with limited success. Keith and Jackie are the caretakers at the townsite and Keith called me the other day to let me know he had a marten in the trap. Since I have a skiff in the water, Jen and I went over to relocate him. Here we are leaving the store, rolling down the boardwalk.
It was a nice day for a skiff ride--no wind, flat water, and just a little snow.
Dropping the marten off at an undisclosed location that is hopefully far enough away so he won't make his way back to the cushy comforts of the store.
After a night in the trap, he was ready for a little run as soon as the cover was removed.
Run Marty!
Marty did a pretty good job of chewing up the trap.....
What does Feral think about the martens?
ReplyDeleteFeral is very interested in the martens--she has chased them off in the past, but Jen usually won't let her out when they're about. We did have a little Ermine wander by right behind Feral, but she was distracted by a bird and didn't even notice!
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