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"Gone Fishering"
by Rich Anderson
Last year while cross-country skiing at the Fahnestock Winter Park, I came upon a set of animal tracks that presented somewhat of a puzzle to me. The animal was definitely from the weasel family, having five toes and being a loper (an animal that bounds with its back feet landing directly behind its front), but I was pretty sure I hadn’t seen tracks like these before. The prints were fairly large, so my initial thought was river otter, but the back feet were too small and there were no marks from a dragging tail. I knew that it had to be a fisher when I saw that the tracks had started from the base of one tree and ended at another. Needless to say, I was very excited.
Fishers (Martes pennanti), sometimes called "fisher cats" because of their resemblance to felines, are furbearing mammals in the family mustelidae with skunks, weasels, marten, mink and otters. Like all mustelids, they possess anal musk glands at the base of their tail. These glands are most evident in skunks where they are modified; allowing the animal to spray the pungent smelling contents at would be predators. Unlike most members of their family who spend their lives entirely on the ground or in the water, fishers are skilled tree climbers and are able to exploit the bounty of this untapped resource. Their, nearly inch-long, sickle-shaped claws allow them to move easily through the tree tops in search of their prey which, in some areas, includes porcupines. Fishers are opportunistic feeders though, and in our area probably eat shrews, rodents, small birds and their eggs, amphibians, insects, and the fruits and nuts of various trees. Not too long after seeing the tracks in Fahnestock, I received a second-hand account of what was described to me as a pine marten seen off of East Mountain Road in Cold Spring. Knowing that, in New York, marten are found only in the High Peaks of the Adirondacks, I assumed that what they saw was a fisher. To indulge my curiosity, I talked with Al Hicks, a mammal biologist with the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) Endangered Species Unit. According to Mr. Hicks, "there have been numerous accounts of fishers from Columbia and northern Dutchess Counties in the past couple of years and they appear to be expanding their range south."
My most recent encounter with a fisher happened just a few weeks ago when a friend called to tell me that he had spotted a road-killed river otter on Route 9D just north of Little Stony Point. Eric Lind, the director of Constitution Marsh Sanctuary, and I raced to the location to have a look. Much to our surprise and dismay, the dead animal was a fisher. It was a male about three feet long, weighing roughly ten pounds. We were saddened that the animal had been killed, but couldn’t help being in awe of its beautiful chocolate-brown fur, muscular legs and menacing teeth and claws.
According to Scott Smith, the Region 3 furbearer biologist for DEC, "there have been two other reports from Putnam County and one from Westchester in the past two years." He also thinks that most of the fishers in this area are male. This is usually the case when fishers move into a new territory and may explain why there has yet to be confirmed breeding around here. Local biologist Jesse Jaycox believes that fishers are coming back to this area because, "there are still large areas of open space and over the past hundred years the landscape has reverted back to mature forest." Considering that fishers prefer dense hardwood or mixed hardwood and coniferous forests, this area should be to their liking. Jesse goes on to say that, "even though porcupines," a large prey item in the fisher’s diet, "are absent from the area, there is still plenty for them to eat. It’s probably only a matter of time though, until we start seeing porcupines as well."
The presence of fishers, river otters, coyotes and bobcats in our area is something to marvel at. There very existence here is a tribute to the people who have worked so hard over the years to preserve our forests, lakes and streams. Let’s not take it for granted!
Rich is the assistant director of Audubon’s Constitution Marsh Sanctuary and the caretaker of Little Stony Point.
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