YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING
Written by
Joe Ewing
I thought I’d seen and
heard just about everything. I’d never before heard of a conservation project like
this one. An article in a southern Pennsylvania newspaper made no sense. This
was quickly followed by an opinion piece in my bi-weekly sporting paper which
shed more light on the whole debacle.
Some describe this animal as “cute and cuddly”, however, if they would ever see this mammal or his family members in action minds would be changed quickly. I considered the introduction of grey wolves out west a bad idea but this one is pushing the wolf idea. I totally understand and subscribe to the balance of nature thing but to enhance a predator, especially a climbing predator as ruthless as this one, which will place all endangered species at increased risk makes no sense. The nauseating idea got me troubled and agitated. Can you tell? Every rabbit, hare hunter and small game hunter should at least be concerned if not outraged.
The
Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry, a division of the Pennsylvania Department of
Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), is placing fisher nesting boxes in
Forbes State Forest in southern Pennsylvania. The fisher nesting box project was
spearheaded by the state Bureau of Forestry with nesting boxes being placed by
volunteers throughout the Forbes State Forest.
Courtesy:
U.S. Fish & Wildlife ServiceFisher, AKA black cat, fisher cat, tree otter, tree fox, fisher weasel, pekan, and Oochik (Cree),
Fisher populations are not declining in Pennsylvania. Quite the contrary. Fishers, a member of the weasel family, are observed quite often by hunters. More and more frequently fishers are seen dead on Pennsylvania highways and caught accidentally in traps. My own beagles have enjoyed a fisher chase or two and a good friend and fellow beagler lost chickens to fishers. The PGC launched a restricted fisher trapping season in 2010 and Pennsylvania now has a fisher trapping season in 16 management units. After an initial harvest of 152, the annual take by trappers has trended generally upward, reaching a record 504 last year.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission’s (PGC)
own website states, “Today, fisher populations are well established and
increasing throughout southwestern, central and northern regions of the state,
and fishers 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.”
I wonder if this nesting box idea is part of the PGC’s “scientifically based management plan” or did the Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry go rogue? Is the PGC aware of the project?
Courtesy Google Earth
Map Complements: PGC
Due to early colonial development fishers declined as
forest their habitats declined. As native forests were cleared in
the 19th century, fishers disappeared from Pennsylvania. The last Pennsylvania populations
were reported in the PA counties of Clearfield, Elk, Cameron, Clinton, Potter
and Sullivan. Fishers were extirpated (destroyed completely: wiped
out) around
the beginning of the 20th century in Pennsylvania. Due to the secretive
nature of fisher and scarcity of records and accounts during the last century,
it is difficult to determine the exact timing of fisher extinction. Sixty or more
years after the fisher’s disappearance, biologists in Pennsylvania, West
Virginia, New York, Michigan and Wisconsin sought to re-establish fishers as
this is what wildlife biologists do best.
The Allegheny National Forest and private timber companies were complaining the forests were being devastated by a bark eating, prickly little critter. The porkies were not only eating the trees they were eating the ANF’s aluminum road signs, destroying porches and treated wood decks on hunting camps and summer cottages and eating their way into buildings. Houndsmen of all types were complaining of too many porcupines and pulling too many quills. I’ve personally pulled thousands of porcupine quills over the years.
In 1969, West Virginia reportedly reintroduced 23 fishers
obtained from New Hampshire. Fisher populations in West Virginia have since
expanded throughout that state and into western Maryland, northern Virginia,
and southwestern Pennsylvania, exactly where Forbes State Forest is located.
As I remember back, word on the street at the time declared that the Pennsylvania Game Commission (Pennsylvania State University and the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources were in on the scheme) “reintroduced” fishers by trading fishers for wild turkeys with New York, other states and possibly Canada. This was around 1994-1998 and the unstated reason was to combat the out-of-control porcupine population, however, the PGC’s stated mission is to maintain and restore wildlife populations. The fishers were relocated to the Allegheny National Forest and numerous sites in the PA counties of Forest and Elk. According to official reports 190 fishers (87 males, 97 females, 6 of unknown sex) were reintroduced in six sites in northern Pennsylvania.
|
|
Today, there are more porcupines than ever on the Allegheny High Plateau.
|
Fisher Nesting Box
A Maine study of fisher stomach
contents found porcupine, snowshoe hare, wild turkey and smaller rodents. One
surprising study from Maine indicated fishers will occasionally attack the much
larger Canadian lynx. It appears the fisher seizes the lynx and holds on until
the cat suffocates. These findings are interesting which brings up the question
what do fishers really eat?
|
MAINE BILL LIMITING
HUNTING WITH DOGS VOTED DOWN The Joint Committee on lnland Fisheries and Wildlife in Maine
unanimously voted “ought not to pass,” killing bill LD-1265 for the
legislative session. LD-1265 prohibited coyote hunting with dogs and
removed an existing exemption for hunting-at-large statute. The bill
removed an exemption for hunting dogs while pursuing game. Current law
exempts dogs actively engaged in hunting, such as hounds running bears and
raccoons or beagles pursuing rabbits.
LD-1265 would have lumped hunting dogs in with feral or stray dogs
chasing or harassing wildlife, making owners criminals. This was another
attempt by anti-hunters to backdoor ban any and all kinds of hunting with
dogs. The bill was carefully crafted to deceive legislators in passing an
outright ban on hound hunting Maine officials from Sportsmen’s Alliance indicated.
-HH
|
Most of the fisher stomach studies take place in the winter during trapping season. I wonder what a fisher’s stomach contains during the spring and summer months?
Wild turkey populations are down, grouse populations are depleted and I could go on and on but the point is we claim we don’t know what fishers eat. If fishers eat snowshoe hare, wild turkey in Maine, you can bet they won’t turn down a turkey, snowshoe hare or Appalachian cottontail in PA. I’m sure a fisher would never raid the nest of ground nesting birds.
Several issues ago I quoted a study by Emily Boyd of the PGC on Appalachian cottontails. The study showed finding this very limited species on Game Lands in southern Pennsylvania counties. If you compare maps, which I have provided, you will find Forbes State Forest and these Game Lands where these threatened and rare cottontails are found are in the same neck of the woods.
Early in this report I indicated I’d never heard of a conservation project intended to help fishers and I found several wildlife writers who agreed with me. With a little research it become quite clear projects of this type are not rare. A fisher nesting
|
MICHIGAN INTRODUES
ABSURD DOG LAW A Michigan State Senator has introduced legislation (SB-395) that
prohibits a dog being outside for more than 30 minutes when the temperature
is below 32 degrees. The bill only allows the dog to be outside longer than
30 minutes if the owner is present and participating in an undefined
recreational activity. This is just another example of unwise legislation which attacks
dog owners and could have dire impacts for sporting-dog owners. -HH
OREGON INITIATIVE PETITION 13 Oregon’s ballot initiative would end hunting. The initiative would
prohibit the killing of any animal except in self-defense. Breeding of
domestic animals, dogs and cats or livestock, would constitute sexual
assault of an animal. -HH
|
The British Columbia study
stated, “A cannibalism event was also recorded on video at one den
box. A female with two kits had left to forage for several hours when a male
fisher arrived at the structure. The male chewed at the opening to the den box
and, over approximately half-an-hour, enlarged it sufficiently to enter the
structure. The male was then observed to remove one kit at a time from the
structure with one eaten on top of the den box.” There you go, cute.
Ninety-nine-point nine percent of the population have never seen a snowshoe hare in the wild and so would never know these species are under constant threat. Even a greater majority of the public have never heard of the Appalachian cottontail and would not know they even exist.
The bottom line: predators, especially fishers, do not need help from humans no matter how cute people may think these animals. Grey wolves look cute to some, too. The whole gruesome idea seems counter-productive to me.
In Pennsylvania the Game Commission is in charge of managing the wildlife and we do not need other branches of government and bureaucrats going rogue.
and
On our blog
@ https://bigwoodsharehuntersoftheallegheny.blogspot.com/
and
Just
“google” us.
