Wildlife:

The Crest’s forests are home to abundant forms of terrestrial wildlife, including deer, elk, black bears, ringtails, mountain lions, spotted owls, and rare amphibians such as the Siskiyou Mountain and Scott Bar salamanders. Robust populations of smaller carnivores like bobcat, coyote, red and gray fox, and weasels also thrive here.

“With 38 native species of amphibians and reptiles, the Klamath-Siskiyou region has the most species-rich herpetofauna of any similarly sized mountain range in the Pacific Northwest. High diversity is due to the overlap of two major biogeographic groups: the Arcto (= northern) and Madro (= southern) Tertiary herpetofaunas.”
--Bury, Bruce R., and Pearl, Christopher, A., Klamath-Siskiyou Herpetofauna: Biogeographic Patterns and Conservation Strategies. Natural Areas Journal V. 19, Number 4, 1999.

The Siskiyou Mountain and Scott Bar salamanders are endemic to the Klamath-Siskiyou, existing only in small populations in Siskiyou County, CA and Jackson County, OR. As members of the lungless salamander family, these creatures breathe through their skin, which must always be moist or wet for respiration to occur. They live in talus or rocky hillsides in the shade of late-successional or old-growth forests with closed canopies and moist microclimates, surfacing from their subterrestrial refugia only during rains to feed upon insects.

The Pacific fisher, a rare forest carnivore, lives in low elevation old-growth forests of the northern United States and Canada. Recent genetic work established that West Coast populations - living in the Sierra Nevada of California and the Klamath Mountains of northern California and southern Oregon - are genetically distinct, verifying the notion of a “Pacific” subspecies. Fisher are tied to lower elevation, closed canopy forests and require large trees for denning. They are specialized predators that frequently travel along waterways and rest in live trees, snags, or logs with cavities. These characteristics are usually associated with late successional forests. Trapping coupled with the severe loss and fragmentation of habitat caused by logging and road building has led to the near extirpation of the fisher from its West Coast range. The fisher has been determined to be “warranted but precluded” (by budgetary constraints) for listing as an endangered species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. There have been multiple confirmed sightings of fisher on the Siskiyou Crest in recent years.

Several species have been extirpated from the region, including the gray wolf, grizzly bear, lynx, wolverine, bighorn sheep and pronghorn antelope. The Siskiyou Crest is one of the most vital habitat connectivity corridors on the West coast and will likely be vital in any successful effort to restore these species to their native habitat.

In their “Suite of Priority Activities to Enhance Biodiversity Conservation”, The World Wildlife Fund concludes, “The relatively intact condition of the Klamath-Siskiyou ecoregion provides a rare opportunity for recovery of large carnivores in the West.”

Referring to the wealth of bird life present in the Klamath-Siskiyou, author and naturalist Pepper Trail writes:
This treasure-trove holds a total of 392 bird species, as documented by a recent review of published and unpublished records. Of these birds, 189 have been confirmed to nest somewhere within the region (this compares, for example, to approximately 255 breeding species for all of Oregon!).

Because of the Klamath-Siskiyou bird community's diversity and variability, its preservation is an essential part of any overall effort to protect the avian biodiversity of North America. Some specific areas that are known to provide vital bird habitat but are not adequately protected include the Klamath River canyon, the Shasta and Scott Valleys, Lake Earl near Crescent City, and the eastern Siskiyou crest.

The good news is that the Klamath-Siskiyou, with its long biological history and diversity of habitats, appears to be a stronghold of genetic variety. To date, the genetics of only two bird species have been examined in the Klamath-Siskiyou, and both exhibited very high levels of genetic diversity compared to other populations of these species across the West. Even more than a treasure trove of species, the Klamath-Siskiyou region may represent a reservoir of genetic variation. This rich variability could prove crucial in the ability of species to respond to long-term environmental changes, such as global warming.

(Click here for a table of birds reaching the edge of their range along the Siskiyou Crest)

The region is also known as an epicenter of terrestrial snail and butterfly diversity.

What may be a new species of mollusk was recently discovered near the Oregon Caves National Monument. There is a particularly high rate of endemism among the terrestrial snails; one study suggested that 60% of the species found here are endemic.

Two butterflies found in the Klamath Mountain Ecoregion are the Oregon leanira checkerspot (thessalia leanira ssp oregonensis) and the Mardon skipper (Polities mardon ssp klamathensis). The Oregon leanira checkerspot is a very rare Siskiyou Mountains butterfly found hidden away as isolated populations in canyons and on hillsides along small streams in Josephine, Jackson, and southern Douglas Counties, Oregon, and in adjacent northern California. The Madron skipper is rare, and was until recently known only from southwest Washington State and far northwestern California. It is found in grassy areas at higher elevations.
---Lang, Frank A., Klamath-Siskiyou Natural History, V.19, number 4, Natural Areas Journal, 1999.


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