Keeping track
Pennsylvania
Curious to know if anyone else is noticing the growth in Pennsylvania's Fisher population?
And, if you are, I'd also be curious to know if you are finding evidence they are impacting any other members of our wildlife community.
Interestingly, I've found sign in the snow where a Fisher and a coyote got into a dustup but both appeared able to walk away from it.
Would enjoy learning of other's experience with this recently reintroduced member of Pennsylvania's weasel family.
Their range is spreading considerably. A guy caught one just down the road here during trapping season and released it with a pole snare. I bet that was exciting :^) I have a picture of it here somewhere....
A Butler county fisher... very much alive.
About fifteen years ago I saw two on an SGL in Bedford County during archery season. I was still hunting and saw one working its way downhill toward me. I watched it for about 10 minutes as it came closer. It was meandering, digging in the dirt, laying down like a puppy. Was a cute little thing. It got to about 10 yards before it saw me and turned and ran uphill. As it ran another one that I hadn't seen joined it.
Man, how big is that thing?
I saw my first one here last winter in northern Columbia co. It was probably less than half the size of the one in pic above. My co worker and I watched it coming down this creek bank for a good 75 yards until it finally picked us out. Also saw tracks in a different part of the county last winter.
Have not seen any sign of them this year but have heard of a couple being trapped.
Pretty sure they were reintroduced in western pa (Indiana co.)? If so, I'm guessing the population is a little bigger out that way?
Females can be 3' long and weigh 6 lbs and males 4' long and weigh 12 lbs.
The one in the picture is being held out toward the camera, at the end of the pole snare, so appears somewhat bigger than what it really is.... but impressive still.
Last month at the local pizza shop a guy came in and ask me if I'd seen any. Still had my camo on. Then two more guys came in talking about them. One guy had asked permission to trap one in a live trap, he caught one and it chewed his way out. Just this past weekend I saw road killed fisher.
Seen them in Somerset Cty about 20 years ago, mt Pleasant Fayette Cty, this past season as well as Latrobe at St Vincent college this past season
The PGC told me the ones I saw likely migrated north from Maryland. They weren't stocked.
Yes Phil, Somerset has had a population for many many years, coming up from Md and WVa. They were just a rarity. They're really a neat critter!
Dale
The only time I ever saw a fisher was on a hunt with our old buddy Ed Berkebile near the Somerset and Bedford county line.
I was sitting in a stand and watched two juvenile fishers come romping and rolling down the hill toward me. I had no idea what they were. Heck, I thought I was watching tasmanian devils or badgers or who knows what.
After hearing my excited tale that evening Ed calmly informed me that they were indeed fishers. Then Ed calmly informed me how truely dumb I was.
I sure miss that guy. :)
I've never seen one in Crawford Co PA or Ashtabula Co Ohio where I hunt but I have seen a bunch of river otters in PA and Ohio in the Pymatuning area, I mainly hunt Ohio and PA around Pymie Those River Otters always seem to travel in small groups of 4 or 5. They are pretty cool and noise when they see you.
Mike
Yeah Ed was bright:) I still can't believe he passed away....
Indiana county's got a bunch. I've seen a pair on the property I have there and my BIL sees them all the time during bow season. (Buffington Township)
I wish we had them down here in southern Maryland. The gray squirrels need thinned out.
Phil,
According to the PGC website, they did indeed do some stocking. The quote is from the embedded link.
"Their return is a product of both in-state reintroductions and range expansion by fishers in West Virginia and possibly from New York. This denizen of the North most likely returned from extirpation in Pennsylvania initially by coming from the south. Its foothold in Pennsylvania was further strengthened when 190 fishers were released in the mid- and late-1990s in three areas across the state's northern tier in reintroductions involving the Game Commission, Pennsylvania State University and Frostburg State University."
I believe you're right though that the majority of the growth is a result of fishers expanding their range out of West Virginia and western Maryland.
Its pretty easy to tell - the ones coming out of Maryland smell like blue crabs and the ones out of West Virgina look just like their Aunt Mom and Uncle Dad. :^)
Dave, they did tell me they stocked them in the northern tier but the ones I saw, only a few miles from the Maryland border, probably migrated here.
Now that Red has confessed I will do the same. I had no idea what they were. The only thing I could think at first was martens because I thought there were different types of fishers and fishers should be long sleek animals. These were juveniles also. Light chocolate brown with a head that looked like a bear and a tail like a fox.
Didn't smell crabs and didn't get a close look at the second one. Could have been from WV. :)
Can't wait to see where this goes. I see fishers everywhere and can't help to think about their impact of other wildlife. Of course I am sure someone will post a study by the PGC or a PGC affiliate that proves they have no impact on other wildlife in PA. I do know they had to cut the fall turkey season back a week in 2H, but I'm positive that will be linked to hunter pressure not predation. Well at least here!
Weren't they released to help with the porcupine population??? Then several years after their release did the pgc legalize the harvest of porkies???
Having lived and run a trap line in/and around Kane, Pennsylvania for most of the first eighteen years of my life and never seeing - or cutting sign of - a Fisher, I would opine that the Fishers I'm finding around my Clarion County home now are here as a result of the PGC's reintroduction effort.
They, along with their larger cousins in the weasel family, the River Otters, have added new spice to my hunting and fishing endeavors.
Still curious, though, if they will have an impact on other species of wildlife. If so, I have seen no definitive sign of it yet albeit I did find the remnants of a young turkey hanging on a limb about six feet off the ground. There were several longish guard hairs stuck in the bark of that tree that looked like (could have been?) Fisher but that's just a guess.
However, having spent a fair amount of time following them on snowshoes, I suspect they are far harder on the numerous species of ground-living rodents that inhabit our woodlands than they are on our small game.
And, despite their reputation as Porcupine killers, I have a photo somewhere in my archives of one that died of starvation because he had a mouth full of quills.
Enjoying all your responses. Thank you.
That is odd you never seen any around Kane. I have seen several over the years in Mckean Co. Usually in areas where I hunt turkeys and small game. Oh and the porcupine are also thriving in these areas:)
I guess IUP's involvement is why I was thinking of Indiana co.
Never saw any in the Poconos. But we have otters. Saw one this year at Promised Land Lower Lake. Maybe why we haven't caught any trout thru the ice this year. I hear otters do a number on the trout.
About 40 or so years ago a distinct smell was noted in the basement of the onew city council building in downtown Latrobe. It houses the police and fire dept., along with other municipal offices, it were a fairly new bldg and it was discovered that several groundhog skeletons lay in behind the boilers. Also vermin and other critters parts.
A well placed box trap collected a fisher, never thought to be in this locale. The fisher it was determined, by suggestion, made its way up along the mighty Loyalhanna:)
Chuck I know it's quite a disappointment to you that fisher cats haven't eliminated the porky population, but they sure are hurtin the groundhogs around Latrobe and since the discovery of one in my bro's backyard, it seems the local missing cat posters have grown exponentially! Mebbe they're not as refined a critter as you think?:)
Maybe they ain't all that bad either;)
Dale,why do you want to eliminate the porky population?I understand they're an issue with dogs but they also provide deer with a lot of browse in the northern tier by chewing branches off.
Chuck,you must be a predator magnet or I must be blind.I've seen a few local trail cam pictures of fishers and know a few people who have seen them once or twice.I don't know a single person who sees them all the time or all over the place.Me personally,I've never seen one although I have seen tracks on a couple of occasions.Regardless,they are a predator that eats small animals but their numbers aren't huge.Turkeys population swings are based on cold wet springs,not predators.
Doug I don't want porky' s eliminated at all. chust responding to ole Flatlander..... When the fishers were reintroduced one of their supposed benefits is that they DO kill porky's. Unfortunately several walks into the woods around locally showed evidence of porky's. Just as unfortunate was the finding of a dead one presumably felled by a high powered rifle during a past season.
I've only ever seen one in the woods-alive- pretty neat critter.
I know the fishers- they'll never run out of groundhogs around here. Good place for them to be:)
We had a big fisher running around my old place in Treasure lake.I never saw it but some of the neighbors had pictures of him.I agree,cool animal.
We've always had some bobcats around as well.I get pictures of them more than I do any other predator.Several years ago,two of my buddies were hunting in trees about 30 yards apart,trying to film each other.A bobcat snuck in and laid next to a log for about 30 minutes before it sprung up and swiped a squirrel off the side of a tree.They got the entire thing on film.I imagine squittels would make up a large part of any predators diet in this part of te state and there's no shortage of them.
Not a predator magnet! I just spend a lot of time in the woods.
The only predator I've seen increase rapidly in Pa is mountain lions.They're all over the place.They don't leave tracks and they don't show up on trail cams but they're seen almost every day.I ran into an older couple on the first day of bear season and they claimed to have seen more black mountain lions this past year than deer.They're primarily mousers so they don't have much of an impact on the deer.
I seen a few alligators along the bank of the Allegheny river last year while doing a float trip. Obviously stocked by the PGC. Wasn't the wolf once indigenous to PA? Can't wait for them to be reintroduced!
