Thursday 9 January 2020

The fishers and trailcams

We're in a cold spell! Despite this, down I go to the forest. We've had 6 cm snow on top of the ice, and it's a little easier to walk on it. The trailcams showed me the fisher has been a regular visitor. S/he's been a shadow in the forest, and an infrequent visitor.

National Geographic says, "The name ‘fisher’ has no relation to fish, but is derived from ‘fiche’ an old English word for the European polecat and its pelt."

They are members of the weasel family, larger than pine martens. They live in holes in the ground, moving about unless they have kits. It eats porcupines 😖, also mice, chipmunks, squirrels, hares, fawns and, of course, carrion!

We're on a travel route, and while I've seen the fisher now and then, it hasn't been a regular visitor. It follows the edge of the wetland. Many talk of cats being killed by fishers. Despite popular tales and stories, scientists aren't sure that fishers eat a lot of cats.





Surprisingly, there were two, but not together.




Fisher Diets – scientist Roland Kays:

With an undergrad student from SUNY Albany named Paul Gallery, I collected 24 diet samples from suburban fishers. ...We washed the samples and compared the remaining fur, feathers, and bones with our museum collections to identify the remains. We found a little bit of everything — except cat. Comparing our results with published studies showed that the suburban fishers ate more gray squirrels than most (20 percent of their diet). There is one study on fisher diet from Massachusetts that recorded two observations of a fisher eating a cat, but found no cat hair or bones in 226 physical diet samples.
Some say, and I'm inclined to believe it, that it is the coyotes that snatch the cats.

A Massachusetts website says,
Fishers were extirpated from much of the northeast in the 1700s and 1800s when loggers and farmers cleared the forests and unregulated trapping took its toll. During the late 1800s, as farms were abandoned and the land became reforested, fisher numbers rebounded.

12 comments:

Tom said...

...look at those shining eyes!

Anvilcloud said...

Good info

Christine said...

First I am hearing of fishers.

Olga said...

I can't say I am overly fond of fishers. I have seen them in my yard and in the woods. Yours seems a persistent visitor.

eileeninmd said...

Hello,

The Fisher is a cool visitor. Great videos! Wishing you a happy day and a great weekend ahead!

Country Girl said...

My daughter and I sighted a fisher a few miles from our house running across the road toward the lake. We have a large dam there and he was in that area. We didn't know what it was and looked it up. I am glad it wasn't closer to our house! I read they are the porcupine's only predator. The one we saw was more golden in color with dark brown tones also. Maybe it was it's fall coat? I have heard that many deer hunters see them up on the mountain near us.

Nancy J said...

There was a documentary on our TV last week, and there were fishers there, quite large and living in a huge wetlands area. Have you been watching the tennis here in Auckland? Eugenie is doing well so far, I was so pleased to see her win the other day.Not sure when her next match is, will look and see.

Nancy J said...

Tennis update Eugenie plays against Amanda Anisimova tonight NZ time of 7 p.m. quarter final.

Jenn Jilks said...

Thank you, Jean!
I don't think we get it! The women's sports are not as available on TV as the men's. Sadly.

carol l mckenna said...

Great photos ~ not a fan of fishercats ~they tend to kill kitties around here ~ Stay Warm ^_^

Happy Moments to You ,
A ShutterBug Explores,
aka (A Creative Harbor)

Red said...

Some of the night time animals are there but we rarely see them. There are lots of flying squirrels here but I've only seen one on a blurry infrared camera.

William Kendall said...

They're formidable animals.