Above: A fisher, via Wikimedia Commons.
A few days ago I was sitting comfortably at thirty feet high in an oak tree. Archery season for hunting Big Game opened on October 1st, and I was waiting for the white-tailed deer to come my way. It was a warm and rainy morning that offered little promise of seeing deer, but still I remained optimistic. Deer movements are less when it is warm out, probably because their winter coats easily over-heat their bodies after any exertion. To save energy, they bed down and wait for more comfortable weather. When hunting, one must remain hopeful and remember that anything can happen, and often it does when one least expects it. Such is life, and how I met my wife!
On this morning I had already been sitting in wait for a couple of hours as my optimism and faith in my pursuit began to be questioned. “Why am I out here?” I asked myself. “Isn’t there something I could be doing at home that would be a better use of my time?” “It’s too warm and rainy for the deer to move.” “They’re probably thinking, ‘stupid human, should have stayed home.’” “I could be eating breakfast with my wife.” And then it happened. Quite often it seems that something is sensed before it is heard and registered as something. I looked around curiously, for what I yet did not know. I then heard a faint sound coming from straight ahead. My heartbeat picked up in anticipation. “At last, a deer”, I thought. A small crunch and crinkle and out came not the old swamp buck I was looking for, but instead a black kitty cat. Or was it? No, this was no cat, but rather my first confirmed sighting of a fisher (Martes pennanti).
I believe that I have seen a fisher before, but never with absolute certainty. The fisher came busting out into plain view and stopped just under the tree I was perched up in. He (or she) looked around as if it too sensed something before actually identifying anything. He stood for a while looking around, unaware of me since I was located slightly upwind of him. He continued on his way crossing right beneath me, until he either crossed my tracks or caught my wind. He quickly turned 90° one way – running forward about 10 yards – and then another 90° back into the direction he came from and out of sight.
Fishers – sometimes called “fisher-cats” – ironically seldom eat fish. Their name is derived from an English corruption of a Dutch name – fisse or visse meaning – since it resembled the European polecat. However, at a quick glance they certainly could be mistaken for a black cat. The fisher is in the Mustelid family, or weasel family. Fishers only exist in North America and can be found trans-continentally through Canada with isolated pockets in the Appalachian, northern Rocky, Adirondack, and Sierra Mountain ranges of the United States.
For the most part, they are a forest-dweller and stick to mature woodlands that offer plenty of organic material, or woody debris on the forest floor, to seek food and cover in. Perhaps another reason why they are found in mature woodlands is that females often choose cavities of mature trees for denning in. After breeding during March or April female fishers undergo a remarkable reproduction cycle called delayed implantation. The gestation period is delayed until mid-February and then lasts for about 50 days. Newborn kits are dependent upon their mother’s milk for about 8 to 10 days. After 5 months or so, the mother pushes them off where they become the solitary hunters of the deep, dark forest.
Fishers blend in well under the shady canopies of mature trees, especially hemlock and spruce found in areas of our region. Like most animals in the weasel family, they are long bodied and low to the ground, which is another reason why hemlock stands may be preferred. In the winter time, snow depths can be drastically less under hemlocks which can make traveling easier. Fishers can reach lengths between 3 and 4 feet. Both sexes are brownish black in color. Around the face and belly is more brown fur, while their backs are darker. Fishers are browner during the summer, but then undergo molting in November where they grow a darker, winter coat. Deciphering between males and females is difficult, but males are normally larger. They can weigh between 8 and 13 pounds, while females between 4 and 6 pounds. The largest recorded fisher is supposedly 20 pounds.
The morning I saw my fisher, I witnessed his ability to turn on a dime. They have extremely mobile ankle joints that allow them to turn 180° quickly. In addition, they are equipped with four paws, each decked out with fine tree climbing and hunting gear that would make any bow-hunter jealous. Each paw has claws on 5 toes with pads for traction that allow the fisher to easily climb trees face-forward, both up and down the tree. The paws are large in proportion to their body – like snowshoes – which makes traveling and hunting during winter’s snowy days a little easier too. For the most part, they live a life of solitude, but when the urge to breed takes over, a gland located on the hind paws secretes an odor used to find a potential mate.
Fishers are perhaps best known for their unique ability to hunt and kill porcupines. As many already know, porcupines are full of quills. However, the fisher overcomes this defense trait by repeatedly attacking or biting its face repeatedly with its 38 sharp teeth. Porcupines try to evade fishers by climbing a tree and facing away from the attack. However, as previously mentioned, fishers are great climbers. Where snowshoe hares are found, so will fishers too since they prey upon them quite often. In the Catskills, snowshoe hares seek the dense cover found atop the higher mountains where balsam fir and red spruce are. Bobcat, fox, and coyote are not as agile as the fisher is, to navigate between the young growth required to successfully catch a rabbit.
Although some say that fishers will occasionally kill a raccoon, bobcat, or turkey, they spend most of their time hunting smaller mammals such as squirrels, mice, voles, rats, shrews, and grouse.. Although fishers are excellent hunters, they are generalist omnivores. When the opportunity arrives, they will feast on nuts, berries, mushrooms or the remains of deer or bear left from a bow-hunter.
Fishers, like other wildlife, used to be scarcer only a short time ago. The fur of the fisher is beautiful and was used in the early 20th century for scarfs and neck pieces. Despite a loaf of bread costing less than 10 cents in the 1930s, fisher pelts were receiving a price more than $400. These high prices enticed more trapping of the fishers where they could be found. In order to preserve the species and meet this high demand, some began farming fishers for their hides. However, farming fishers was difficult business since many did not understand the fisher’s complicated reproductive trait of delayed implantation. Coupled with trapping – and perhaps more significant to the reduction and near extirpation of fishers – was habitat loss. As previously mentioned, fishers require some mature woodlands for denning and hunting. Most of the Northeast’s natural capital in the early 20th century was in livestock, and the pastures they required. After World War II, both pelt prices and the agricultural industry fell and so began the regrowth of the region’s forests, which has led to the present near extirpation of the cow and its replacement with deer, turkey, coyote, bear, bobcat, and… fisher.
So, I didn’t see the Old Buck of the Mountain that morning hunting, but I did see a fisher, and remembered another reason why I was out there, 30 feet high in a tree – to relax and let the woods come to me. Most people in the Northeast will never see one. They are solitary and do most of their hunting at night. As long as they keep away from my chickens – who are contained inside a woven-wire fence – I will look forward to seeing this fellow solitary hunter again. www.catskillforest.org
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