There's a new push to help save an animal that's native to Oregon and on the brink of extinction.
The coastal marten is a relative of the river otter .
Katie Moriarty has been studying the cute but feisty animal for more than a decade. Moriarty is a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Forest Service.
"They look a bit like a cat mixed with a fox mixed with a little bit of weasel," she said. "They really have an aesthetically pleasing face and a long bushy tail."
The coastal marten, which is only about the size of a 10-week-old kitten, once ranged throughout Oregon's coast.
But during a four-year study of the elusive creature, Moriarty discovered only two coastal marten populations left in Oregon.
One was near the southern border, the other in the Coastal Dunes near Coos Bay.
Researchers used remote cameras to track the creatures and collected DNA samples from fur to identify them.
They discovered the once robust population had dwindled down to less than 90 adults.
"If one to three martens die per year in this population through human caused events, they will likely go extinct," said Moriarty.
It's something she says is already happening. Moriarty says two of the biggest threats to the coastal martens right now are human caused.
The animals are being hit by cars along Highway 101 and are being trapped for their fur.
"There's no bag limits anywhere in Oregon," Moriarty said.
Currently, martens are trapped for their fur throughout the state. A number of conservation groups filed a petition asking the state to impose a coastal trapping ban.
A ban is something Moriarty maintains would help keep the native critters from vanishing for good.
"It's a fairly easy conservation method to remove trapping such that we don't harm the population any more than we could," she said.
California banned the trapping of coastal martens back in the 1940s.