Molly's pup pal

    • Gold Top Dog

    Molly's pup pal

    killed a Fisher
    We did our walk tonight and both dogs ran off into the woods and then we heard hissing. I called Molly, she's such a good girl she comes right back.
    Beau didn't come back and we could still hear the hissing sound.
    Then he came back with the Fisher in his mouth. I'm pretty sure it was born this spring. It was about 5 lbs. and they get larger than that. Looked like he shook it and broke its back. It wasn't dead but couldn't move.
    My friend's hubby walks w/us sometimes and he carries a 9mm. If the Fisher was still alive when we walked back he was going to end its suffering but it had passed.
    I was very surprised....he probably wouldn't have caught an adult or if would have been torn up trying.
    • Gold Top Dog
    Aren't you someplace in New England?  I didn't know fishers lived that far east.  For some reason, I thought they were only found in the northwest.  Live and learn!  [:)]
     
    Maybe Beau didn't shake it.  Mick "killed" a squirrel one time just by picking it up.  The dang thing tried to flip over and bite Mick, breaking its back in the process.
    • Gold Top Dog
    Ok, here's my ignorance hanging out....what's a fisher?  Is it a bird?
    • Gold Top Dog
    OK, I live in the Northeast and have NO CLUE as to what a fisher is.  Please divulge!
    • Gold Top Dog
    Me neither.  I was alarmed at first b/c I thought you were talking about someone fishing but obviously that is incorrect.  [8|]
    • Gold Top Dog
    • Gold Top Dog
    Glad I read this. I had no idea what a fisher was.
    • Gold Top Dog
    Hehe, NO ONE knows about fishers around here (I'm in New England, too).  They're small and secretive so I don't think they get seen a lot, and most people haven't even heard of them before.  I think we had a recent boom in their population...my mom was telling me how she read in the newspaper that they keep getting hit on the road in increasing numbers and everyone freaks out because they don't know what the heck they are.  I have a feeling they're probably one of the many species that almost got wiped out when the settlers first came here from England (probably for their fur) and are only just coming back with a relatively large population - at least one big enough to be noticed.  I've never gotten a good look of one in the wild though. 
     

     
     
    I actually got attacked by a....weasel relative of some sort when I was in Nova Scotia last summer, it might have been a fisher.  My boyfriend and I were lying on the beach stargazing one night when we heard rocks shift on the beach above us a little ways, so Dave propped himself up on his elbows and turned around to see and all of a sudden we heard this wild scream and something small and black shot towards us and ran right past us, missing Dave by a few inches.  It let off a nasty stink as it ran by, smelled like a diluted skunk almost.  Needless to say Dave freaked out (he's a scaredy cat [8|]) and we had to go home right away, but I was so excited to have been so close to a weasel like that!  We know there are minks that live on the beach rocks, so we assumed that's what it was.  Not quite a fisher, but pretty close [:)]
    • Gold Top Dog
    ORIGINAL: Nikki_Burr
    Hehe, NO ONE knows about fishers around here (I'm in New England, too)...

     
    I only know about them thanks to "Marty Stouffer's Wild America",  a wildlife show I used to watch on PBS back in the early '90s.
    • Gold Top Dog
    fishers are frequent around here...and yes they were nearly wiped out, along with beaver, for fur. Can still collect a bounty on fisher pelt in NH.
    Many people deny it but fishers take cats all the time. I know many many people who have saved their outside cats from fishers and seen the attack. It's brutal. The reason why they can kill porcupines is they keep attacking the face and belly until the animal gives up with pain and exhaustion. Not nice creatures but they have to survive too.
    I think the one Beau got was young and already injured. We'd had a terrible thunder storm prior to our walk and the fisher was soaking wet. Most animals are going to seek shelter during a downpour like that and I don't think he could