By Don Lyman
The Boston Globe, January 29, 2020
A fisher standing on a stone wall in central Massachusetts. MASSWILDLIFE / BILL BYRNE
On a summer morning in 2016, I was walking in the Middlesex Fells in Stoneham when I saw what looked like a large house cat with thick, dark brown fur, chasing a rabbit along a trail about 20 feet away from me.
What would a house cat be doing in the woods? Then I realized what I was looking at wasn’t a cat at all — it was a fisher, a large member of the weasel family. This one looked to be about 2 feet long with a foot-long tail.
I was thrilled to have seen the secretive predator. I’ve occasionally seen dead fishers on the road, mostly along the stretch of Route 125 that runs through Wilmington, North Reading, and Andover, but this was the only live fisher I’ve seen.
Fishers are common across Massachusetts, said Dave Wattles, black bear and furbearer biologist from the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. But that wasn’t always the case.
The Mass Wildlife webpage, “Learn About Fishers,” says they had disappeared from Massachusetts by the 1800s due to forests being cleared for agriculture. There were a few sightings of fishers reported in central Massachusetts in the 1950s, and by the 1970s road kills and inadvertent captures in traps began to be reported, according to Mass Wildlife.
“Fishers are a forest-dependent species,” said Wattles. “They were found throughout the state before European colonists came and cut down the forests. When the farms were abandoned, the forests grew back, and remnant populations of fishers from northern New England spread throughout Massachusetts.”
Wattles said deer hunter surveys, where hunters report wildlife species they see while hunting, show the highest sighting rates of fishers in Massachusetts are in and around the Boston suburbs.
“It’s counterintuitive,” said Wattles, “because fishers are a forest species. But there are enough forests and state parks in and amongst the suburban development for fishers to use.”
(right) A fisher on the hunt in central Massachusetts. MASSWILDLIFE / BILL BYRNE
In a familiar story for other predators — like bobcats and foxes — that also have found a home in the suburbs, fishers’ diets are supplemented by animals that are attracted to bird feeders.
“Bird feeders are happy hunting grounds with regard to naïve birds and squirrels,” said Wattles. “Bird feeders provide a reliable prey base which is easy for fishers to target.”
Fishers also feed on small rodents, like mice and voles, as well as rabbits, eggs, fruit, and the carcasses of dead animals, according to Mass Wildlife.
But the most unusual item on the fishers’ menu has to be porcupines.
“Fishers are the only consistent predators of porcupines,” according to a publication about fishers by Roger Powell, biologist and professor emeritus at North Carolina State University, and his colleagues. “They have evolved unique behaviors to kill them. A fisher kills a porcupine on the ground with repeated bites to the face, which is the only exposed part of a porcupine not protected by quills.”
After a fisher kills a porcupine, it feeds on the porcupine’s quill-free belly, according to Powell’s publication.
Although they are proficient climbers, fishers hunt mostly on the ground, Mass Wildlife said. And they occasionally become prey themselves.
“My research on fishers in California documented bobcats, pumas, and coyotes as predators of fishers,” Powell said in an e-mail. “Bobcats appear to be the most common predators.” Powell said a more insidious form of mortality for fishers came from rodenticides used on illegal marijuana fields hidden deep in forests on federal, state, and private land. In Massachusetts, threats to fishers are mainly from vehicle collisions and habitat loss, said Wattles.
Although fishers are not allowed to be hunted in Massachusetts, Wattles said there is a short trapping season for three weeks in November.
Wattles said he has not heard reports of fishers attacking people. Fishers could potentially go after cats or small dogs, but they would probably stay away from bigger pets because of the chance of being injured. He added that fishers can prey on chickens.
Fishers can be active day or night, and do not hibernate. They tend to be active at night, dawn, and dusk in summer, and during the day in winter.
Although some people refer to fishers as “fisher cats,” they are not cats. They are mustelids — members of the weasel family. Fishers exhibit the typical “weasel” shape with long, slender bodies, short legs, furry tails, and pointed faces with large, rounded ears, according to Mass Wildlife. They are well adapted for climbing and have sharp, retractable claws similar to those of domestic cats.
Fishers are found across forested areas of the northern US and southern Canada, south into the Appalachians in the East, and into California in the West.
As for the origin of the fisher’s name, the most likely possibility is that early settlers noticed the similarity between fishers and European polecats, or “fitch ferrets,” according to Powell. Other names for European polecats included fitchet, fitche, and fitchew, which are similar to the name “fisher.”
Many people I’ve talked to claim to have heard fishers screaming in the woods at night, a noise they often refer to as “yowling.”
When I asked Wattles about fishers screaming, he said, “It’s a fox! I believe 99 percent of the time what people are hearing is a fox scream when they believe they hear a fisher scream.” Wattles said when he’s observed fishers, he’s only heard them make chittering or chirping noises.
Powell agrees. He said fisher vocalizations include chuckles, hisses, and growls, but he’s yet to talk to anyone who reported hearing a fisher scream and who actually saw the fisher scream.
“I have handled probably close to a hundred fishers to outfit them with transmitter collars, some of whom got very upset,” said Powell. “Fishers do not yowl. Basically, no mustelids do. Fishers are very quiet.”
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