Fisher Cat Tracks

The day after I scared the fisher cat from the barn, we looked for tracks. We found them in a drying stream bed near the barn. He came from the other side of the road. John has seen the fisher a couple more times as he went out "on patrol" after dark. The fisher was in the tall grass by the edge of the road, staring into the light of the flashlight. Usually the fisher cat's claws wouldn't be so ominously big, but he was walking in mud, which probably enhanced their size.

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Another Fisher Cat Story

On the Saturday night of the women's retreat, Amy and Nate went out for the evening. The chickens always put themselves to bed, but the days are longer, and they hadn't retired to the coop before the kids left for the evening. Now this has happened before, and the kids have always gotten back fairly early. But this night was different.

At 10 PM, I went out to the garage to count cats to make sure they were all in for the night. The garage was closed but I heard loud chicken clucking. The chicken wasn't in the barn — which is very bad. I ran to the stairs and called out to John, who had gone to bed earlier. Then I grabbed a flashlight, a very poor flashlight, and ran outside. I knew that it would be a couple of minutes before John would be able to get the rifle and get outside to get the raccoons and I wanted to stop any more massacres.

The panicky, clucking chicken was in the driveway in front of the garage door, under the outside light which was on. She was pacing back and forth as if waiting for the garage doors to open so she could get into the house. I ran up to the barn. My plan was to shine the flashlight into the barn and holler, which would hopefully slow down or stop the raccoons.

I shined the inadequate light into the open barn from where I stood outside and an unholy scream broke out. I began to scream. At the same moment, John came out the garage door with the rifle. I stumbled towards the house as John came towards me. He hollered at me for screaming and scaring the animal in the barn. I got back to the garage and waited with the chicken.

She was still clucking wildly and pacing in front of the garage doors. Occasionally she would stop her clucking, cock her head and listen to a scream that we heard on the mountainside. As soon as the scream would end, she would throw herself into the air and try to get into the garage through the sealed garage door windows. She left the imprint of her wings and feathers on the dusty glass of the windows.

John returned and said it was not a raccoon that had been in the barn — it was a fisher cat. He said I had been very foolish to go to the barn unarmed when I knew that was trouble in there. There could have been a bear or bobcat in that barn. Or a raccoon. But this time it was a fisher and I had put myself in danger with what I had thoughtlessly done. John was furious with me. I realized that he was right and apologized.

The screaming on the mountain from the angry fisher cat continued for awhile and faded away. But the chicken was not calming down or going to her roost. We opened the garage door and the noise scared the chicken into the barn, where we managed to herd her into the coop. All this time, the cats, who could have gone outside through the garage, and the dogs, who always bark at excitement outside and could have jumped through the screens on the window, were completely quiet and stayed in. They recognized the cry of a fisher cat and were not going to antagonize it further.

It was midnight before the chickens were in bed for the night and John and I could return inside. The kids got home around 1 AM, when I told them the whole story. Thankfully, the repairs to the chicken coop that Nate had made had held and everyone was safe.

Since that time two weeks ago, John has seen the fisher cat prowling the land at night. The raccoons tried to get into the coop one more time. I heard wild clucking again one night. By the time everyone got out to the coop, there were no threats to the chickens in the barn. But there was a lot of blood on the chicken wire over the window. The raccoons had tried to chew through the wire and gotten badly cut.

We are in the process of dismantling the falling down barn and building a big, secure coop.

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It's A Fisher Cat

The other day, I posted about this mysterious mammal across the road in the beaver bog. It was confirmed on Sunday and Monday by a biologist, teachers, Vermonters and students: this is a fisher cat. I had several offers from folks to come shoot it but it was pointed out to me that the fisher most likely is hungry because the snow is so deep. As the snow pack recedes, it will probably return to its normal territory. Sure enough, this photo was the last sighting. 

It was also pointed out to me many times that I am running a fisher cat luncheonette (the favorite food of fisher cats? Kitty cats.)

Technorati Tags: Fisher cats, Martes pennanti

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My Mystery Mustelid

This animal has been hunting and swimming in the beaver meadow across the road for a week now. Amy thought it was an otter. I was thinking mink. But now I am thinking fisher cat (but it is probably too small for a fisher). Can anybody help identifying it? It is brown with a bushy or thick tail. Fishers and minks have bushy tails. This animal we see seems to run aimlessly (to me) around the meadow. We see it all times of the day.

above: long shot
below: closeup of the animal from the above photo

Click on any photo to view it full-size in a new window.

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Two Fisher Cat Stories

A stuffed fisher cat at the Northwoods Center

A few summers ago, at night, a fisher cat tried to break into the open kitchen window. The cats were going crazy trying to break out to get the fisher. I have a shotgun but I couldn't shoot without shooting my own cats. I have to get a rifle soon but have not done so yet. Every night all windows on the first floor of the house have to be closed so that a fisher won't break in. They love to eat housecats.

My spring fed well in the woods.

This wild and true story came to me from our former science teacher, who used to live in Charleston. A dairy farmer there has a spring fed well for his cows in the barn. The water was coming into the barn, yet the cows refused to drink it and were getting thirsty and their milk yield was dropping. Finally the farmer went out to the well to see what the matter was. He took the lid off the well and found a fisher cat drowned in the well. He left the top off the well, intending to return later. But he never got back there for a week. When he returned, he found ten fisher cats drowned in the well!

Technorati Tags: fisher cats, Northwood Stewardship Center, spring wells, taxidermy

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Cats Tuesday: It's No Cat

A seldom seen close look at a fisher. (Photo: Mt. Washington Burke Museum)

I have seen these in the woods. We even had one try to break into the house one summer night! They are the stuff of folklore and woods legends. Don't believe everything in this article: fisher cats DO eat housecats! The fishers we see are black and very big. Like the size of a small dog.

In New England, fishers are called fisher cats. They often look like huge cats from afar (and they eat cats).

From the Caledonian Record, St. Johnsbury, VT column Hidden Worlds

Saturday March 23, 2002

A formidable predator lives amongst us, one we almost never see. I've gotten only a few close looks at fishers during my years in the Northeast Kingdom, but once seen, these powerful creatures leave a lasting impression of alert intelligence, strength, and a don't-mess-with-me attitude.

My successes have been mostly along back roads when a fisher crossed from one densely wooded tract to another. They don't tarry, although one stood its ground and glared as my car inched forward, hissed and growled before turning to gallop hump-backed into the pine woods, its gait clearly showing relationship to the smaller, more sinuous weasel. I was glad to be inside the car.

A fisher is one of the largest mustelids, a family that includes not only weasels, but martens, ferrets, otters, and the immense wolverine. Interactions with humans are rare and not of the animals' choice. Despite weasels having been kept in 1st Century European farmhouses to provide needed pest control, mustelids - especially mink, ermine, and sable - have been hunted for their lustrous pelts for at least two thousand years.

Jason's Golden Fleece may have been glowing sable fur, a valuable commodity in ancient Greece. The crowns of 17th Century Russian kings, including Czar Boris Gudunov, consisted of sable hats ornamented with jewels and gold. Over 40,000 sable pelts were once sent to Vienna in a diplomatic exchange of goods, and hundreds of thousands of pelts were traded annually in the 18th Century.

The glistening white winter coat of ermine, an animal originally from England, was used for royal capes and robes. Our local weasels turn white in winter, and while we call them ermine, they don't have the gleam of European ermine.

In some areas of North America hunters and trappers have brought mink and the marten (the continent's most valuable fur animal) close to extinction. In the late 19th Century, for example, about 120,000 marten pelts were traded each year, but by 1930, the total barely reached 800. Today mink are raised in cages to be "harvested" for their lustrous fur.

What of the fisher? Because of its reclusive nature, sparse population, and relatively coarse fur, the fisher has been largely spared the fate of its close marten relative and smaller mustelid cousins. Nevertheless it too has been hunted and extirpated in many places, although protected in others. Because its original range in northern New England is returning to the heavily forested habitat it requires, its present wide distribution appears stabilized.

Myths and tall tales revolve around fishers. They don't rob fish traps and have little to do with water, although they are capable swimmers. They don't shun trees as some have claimed, but are agile climbers; females create cavity nests high in conifers where their young are born and raised.

A fisher isn't related to cats, although "fisher-cat" is commonly heard here in the Northeast Kingdom. Fishers don't kill deer, despite an occasional hunter's claim. Yes, the animal may munch on a deer carcass, but what free-loading carnivore won't if meat is conveniently at hand?

A fisher is impressive enough without such hyperbole. Females weigh seven or eight pounds, but a truly big male, 3-1/2 feet long including the furred tail, can weigh as much as 18 pounds of solid bone and muscle. That is more than a red fox, and no sensible fox will ever tangle with a fisher's fury.

A fisher and the smaller marten are the only sizable North American predators capable of climbing trees and entering ground burrows, making them versatile hunters. The fisher is built for business, with a long heavily-muscled body, broad flat head narrowing to a pointed face, and stubby rounded ears that don't get in the way of confined spaces or fighting. Its short legs end in sharp curved claws that are capable of a lot of damage.

Still, when seen close-up, it is a handsome animal with a dense dark brown coat, lighter under the throat and grizzled with silver or gold on head and shoulders.

A fisher works a territory of 10 square miles or less, an area determined by the prey it seeks. Its scent-marked boundaries are respected by others of its kind. Despite its size and weight, it can out-climb red squirrels that figure largely in its diet. Chipmunks, snowshoe hares, mice, voles, and shrews are other staples, but fare is not restricted to them.

Reptiles, birds, insects, carrion, even berries and fruit are devoured when found. Despite its name, the only fish this mustelid is likely to eat is discovered dead on a shoreline. Its real claim to dietary fame is a fondness for porcupine and an ability to repeatedly attack the face of one of these lethargic creatures, confuse and tire it, then flip it over and rip out the throat and belly.

Out here in the wooded countryside fishers are notorious for disposing of domestic cats, commonly available because many are put out at night, an adage for which there is neither reason nor merit. Neighbors have lost "outside" cats repeatedly, and I keep hearing of others in the Kingdom whose pets have mysteriously failed to come home after a night out. One owner found the carcass of his cat torn to shreds partway up a tree - no coyote did that.

The solution, of course, is to keep cats indoors, where they thrive.

The thicker and more continuous the forest habitat for a fisher, the better. It prefers a good overhead canopy to darken and dampen the ground. Trees should be mostly coniferous (spruce, cedar, fir and white pine), with only a scattering of hardwoods. The animal occupies and defends holes and dens originally dug by other creatures, also brush piles, hollow logs and stumps, keeping several as way stations and rest stops. Winter dens can be burrows in deep snow.

In dense woodland, a fisher may travel along fallen logs, where sometimes you find bark and soft wood ripped up from their searches for insects and mice. I sat for hours in a blind near one large log, hoping to photograph a secretive fisher passing along this forest thoroughfare - an exercise in futility.

The fisher is a loner, sociable only when breeding season arrives in March and April. Mating is a short, noisy affair with the male only partly successful in quieting the female by a strong bite to her neck. After this romantic interlude they go their separate ways and stay that way.

Gestation requires almost exactly a year, but this is because of delayed implantation of the fertilized eggs, an advantage when taking into account the care of older young. Two or three (sometimes five or six) young are born in the spring, and within a week or two the female mates again while the helpless, blind young are still suckling and dependent, as they will be for almost two months.

Even after being weaned, young fishers remain with their mother until fall, when they go off on their own. With luck, they can live more than a dozen years, although eight or 10 years are more likely. Because they are remarkably disease-free, survival depends largely upon a lack of human intervention and habitat destruction.

With a leisurely mode of reproduction and extensive territory necessary to support even a single fisher, they have never been very populous, even under the most favorable conditions.

The fisher I've seen near our house may not show itself again for a long time, even though it is likely to pass this way often. It is a reclusive neighbor at best, and its crossing spot is only a fragment of a much larger territory.

Within the hour "my" fisher could scamper past the house intent on finding prey in the dim surrounding woods. But I'll never know.

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©2001 William H. Amos
Bill Amos is an author and retired biologist who lives in St. Johnsbury. He has been a frequent contributor to National Geographic.

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