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Article: The fortunes of fishers: on the wane in the West, the weasel's numbers are waxing in the East.
- Article from:
- Animals
- Article date:
- January 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The first two fishers Sally Beckwith raised for release to the wild were orphaned adolescents, and they took her to fisher school. They leapt horizontally between trees and stuck like Velcro balls. They chased each other headfirst down trees as if nothing were holding them, accelerating as they descended. When stressed or displeased, they emitted bloodcurdling screams.
Not long ago, Beckwith, a licensed wildlife rehabilitator who lives in Massachusetts, hadn't even known what a fisher was. The animals were eliminated from the state by the mid-1850s, and not until 1960 was another sighting recorded as they spread back southward from New Hampshire and Vermont. No ...