The species is typically associated with late-seral coniferous forests characterised by closed canopies, large trees, and abundant standing and fallen woody material (Buskirk and Powell 1994, Thompson and Harestad 1994). It dens in hollow trees or logs, in rocky crevices, or in burrows. It is primarily nocturnal. Whilst partly arboreal, it spends considerable time on the ground. The diet consists mostly of rodents and other small mammals and also includes birds, insects, fruit and carrion (Nowak 2005). Average home-range size throughout North America is 8.1 km² for males and 2.3 km² for females, and the degree of overlap varies (Powell 1994).

American Marten occurs across most of North America from Alaska through much of forested Canada, into the north-eastern United States, and south along northern California, south in the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains.

In most state and provincial jurisdictions in western North America where it occurs, the American Marten is managed as a furbearer. Protective regulations allowed the species to make a comeback in some areas, but in the eastern United States it survives only in small parts of Minnesota, New York and Maine (Yocum, 1974, Mech and Rogers 1977). In the Pacific states, conservation measures should include a re-evaluation of timber harvest plans that affect habitat in coastal forests, inter-agency cooperation on a coastal marten conservation assessment, and the collection of new survey information, especially on private lands in south-western Washington and north-western Oregon (Zielinski et al. 2001).