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October 31, 2009

'The black cat' is on the prowl

By DENNIS APRILL, Outdoor Perspective

By early November, the thick undercoat of the fisher is lush and prime, which is why, at the height of the last trapping boom 30 years ago, a single fisher pelt would command $175 or more, and that was in 1979 dollars.

Today, fur trapping has hit rock bottom, and as a result, fisher numbers have increased to the point that you can find them not only in the remote Adirondacks, but in the outskirts of the City of Plattsburgh as well.

The fisher is a powerful predator, no matter where it resides, and its prey ranges from mice and rabbits to domestic free-roaming cats to wild turkeys and larger mammals; there have been cases of fishers actually going after fawns just after birth in May. Prey can't escape by climbing a tree because fisher are excellent climbers as well as ground stalkers and can be very quick when they need to be.

I remember an instance years ago when driving up my hunting club road to a point where an old gate stood, bordered on one side by a scotch pine plantation and the other by a stand of cedars. A rabbit ran down the road toward my truck at full speed, with no regard for the approaching vehicle. Then, I saw why: Loping behind in hot pursuit was a large fisher. I beeped the horn and the fisher hung a right, sparing that rabbit for at least another day.

Fisher are dark-colored, but many have a slightly lighter front to their stocky body. They have a pointed nose and a long bushy tail and look larger than the 10 or 12 pounds they actually weigh. They have often been referred to as "the black cat." I am convinced fisher are quite often mistaken for black panthers, especially when they loop across a road in front of a vehicle. All studies of mountain lions in the west, where they are common, show melanism (the dark phase) is almost non-existent.

Fisher have large feet, with five toes and long claws showing. They are one of the few predators that can kill a porcupine, but I think they do so only when hunger forces the attack. Supposedly, the fisher grabs the porcupine by its nose and flips it over so it can bite the only portion of the porcupine not protected by quills. Others say the fisher just bashes the slow moving porcupine on the face with its claws until it is dead. In either case, trappers have reported fisher with porcupine quills in their snouts, so these animals do pay a price for trying.

Fisher mate in late winter and early spring, and after an extended gestation period that could be up to a year, a litter of one to five is born in the early spring of the following year. They belong to the same weasel family as do ermine, mink, skunks, otters, marten and the wolverine, the largest member of this family. Fisher differ from marten in size and coloration, the latter smaller, with more orange-brown fur and pronounced ears sticking out of their head. Where both coexist, the fisher dominates, as it does almost every other animal that crosses its path.

E-mail Dennis Aprill at daprill2000@yahoo.com and check out our Web site www.pressrepublican.com/0105_outdoor_perspective for more photos and past articles.

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