Thursday, April 3, 2025

The fisher (Pekania pennanti) is a carnivorous, cat-like weasel native to North America.

 


Ran across one of these years ago in the Desolation Wilderness near Lake Tahoe.

13 comments:

  1. A fisher was a character in an old Andre Norton sci fi novel.

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  2. They have an eerie cry, we hear them out in the NH woods at night.

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  3. Fishers or "Fisher Cats" as they are sometimes known here in Eastern Ontario, along with Pine Martens, are some of the gnarliest little critters in the woods. They have even been known to chew on car tires in the Winter just for the salt. Steve_in_Ottawa

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  4. i get them on my trailcam once in a while here in western ny
    https://youtu.be/dGVTXIpEyDo?t=20

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  5. I bet Napoleon Dynamite hunts them with his uncle.

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  6. We got fisher cats up in NH, look like a dog with a really ugly badger's head, an area near by fish and game put a bounty on them, mostly cause they go after porcupines, their favorite food, and raccoon's, which they kill seems out of spite. Anyways fisher cats will clean out square miles of every small critter in just a couple weeks. They even will attack people, shot one right at my front porch one night, surprised both of us, had my shotgun in hand cause we heard it doing its blood curdling scream, out by the turkey coop and pig pen, i snap shot the little bastard caught it in the shoulder with #4 buck, he ran off but succumbed by the stone wall. They have a beautiful pelt and big bushy tail, but they truly look like a Frankenstine's monster, like God stuck pieces of a bunch of different critters together. Made them as mean as anything known too. Watched one slink by me on a deer stand, grunting and growling the entire time, really something to see.

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  7. We had them in the woods behind our house in NH. They can make a racket when fighting coyotes or killing whatever.

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  8. We got them here in the Adirondacks. They raid squirrel nests at night and can get up and down big trees with ease.

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  9. We deer hunt in Northern Wisconsin. We put corn out to attract the deer. Squirrels come to eat the corn. The last few years a jet-black Fisher has been preying on the squirrels. It is neat to see it.

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  10. I want two. Heh, Heh.

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  11. I've heard them called "Fisher's Martens".

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  12. Saw a Fisher in Mt. Rainier National Park in the 90's. We were standing on a footbridge and it came across from the other side and got fairly close to us before it noticed us and skedaddled back the way it came. Made a special trip to the ranger station to tell them about it, and they said "there are no fishers in the park". They insisted we didn't see what we saw. Saw an article in the paper about 5 years later that was making a big fanfare out of "population of fishers discovered in Mt. Rainier National Park". Yeah...

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