When do fishers hunt

Due to their shy, elusive and solitary lifestyle, fishers have not been seen by most people, though the animals live in forested regions, and areas with abundant trees that surround both suburban and urban areas throughout the state. Sporting an elongated body and short legs, rounded ears, small eyes and a pointed snout, the average male fisher weighs between 8 and 15 pounds, and is around 3 feet long from nose to tail tip.

Females are smaller at about 4 to 6 pounds and 2 feet long, and their fur is often darker and more luxurious than the males. Thomas Decker, a wildlife biologist with the U. Fish and Wildlife Service in Hadley, said these animals come 11 different colors ranging from almost black to light brown and gray.

With sharp retractable claws, teeth that can puncture, shear and grind, a good sense of smell, hearing and eyesight, great speed, agility and excellent tree-climbing abilities, fishers are built to hunt and are a very effective and efficient predator. Primarily carnivorous, it will eat a variety of small to medium sized mammals, including mice, moles, voles, shrews, squirrels, muskrats, woodchucks, snowshoe hares, and occasionally even fawns.

The fisher has also been known to consume a variety of birds, reptiles, amphibians, and insects. Apples, cherries, raspberries, beechnuts, and acorns are also significant. The fisher's appetite for porcupine is unique. There is much speculation as to how a fisher accomplishes this prickly meal, but as evidence suggests porcupines are most certainly a routine part of their diet.

A fisher likely crowds the porcupine to the outer limits of a tree's branches, forcing it to fall. The dazed and probably injured porcupine is then more susceptible to an attack on the ground. Repetitive attacks to the unquilled face also help. Either way, this is proof of the fisher's amazing agility aloft in the trees or on the ground.

The fisher is active both day and night, with heightened activity occurring in the early morning and late evening. It will travel long distances during short periods in search of food.

One radio-collared male, for example, traveled over 60 miles in a three-day period. While wandering, a fisher will periodically stop to investigate possible food sources such as porcupine dens. In areas where prey is more abundant and predictable, such as in dense coniferous forest, it often zigzags back and forth, thereby flushing possible prey from its hiding cover. While hunting, its body temperature falls forcing it to seek the warmth of shelter afterwards. Temporary dens are most often found under logs, root wads, brush piles, and in the cavities of hollow trees or beneath the snow.

While the fisher will eat domestic cats, the occurrence of cat in their diet is relatively low. One study conducted in north- central Massachusetts examined scats and 57 gastrointestinal tracts of fishers in attempt to determine their seasonal food habits. Whether you've heard a screeching sound around your apartment or house at night, or know of someone who has spotted one recently, here's what you should know about the fisher. Don't let the name fool you: The carnivorous member of the weasel family actually does not eat fish.

Colloquially referred to by some as "fisher cats", fishers hunts a variety of prey, including mice, hares, woodchucks and most importantly, porcupines.

Between and , fishers were released into 37 Vermont towns in an attempt to control an increase in porcupine populations. In , West Virginia reintroduced 23 fisher obtained from New Hampshire.

Fisher populations in West Virginia have since expanded throughout that state and into western Maryland, northern Virginia, and southwestern Pennsylvania.

Similarly, New York transferred 30 fishers from the Adirondacks into the Catskills Region during , and current populations in northeastern Pennsylvania may have been colonized or enhanced by natural dispersal from New York.

Most recently and significantly, during , through a joint project between the Game Commission, the Pennsylvania State University and the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources fishers 87 males, 97 females, 6 of unknown sex were reintroduced in six sites in northern Pennsylvania. Today, fisher populations are well established and increasing throughout southwestern, central and northern regions of the state, and fisher have become established even in some rural and suburban habitats once thought unsuitable for this adaptive forest carnivore.

As fisher populations have increased, the Game Commission has adopted a scientifically based and highly conservative management plan to ensure that the fisher will remain an important forest carnivore in Pennsylvania forests.

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