They are active year-round, and are solitary, associating with other fishers only for mating. An omnivore, the fisher feeds on a wide variety of small animals and occasionally on fruits and mushrooms. In some regions, the fisher is known as a pekan, derived from its name in the Abenaki language, or wejack, an Algonquian word (cf. Fishers have had a long history of contact with humans, but most of it has been to the detriment of fisher populations. It was decided to create the genus Pekania and reclassify the fisher as Pekania pennanti. His primary interest was an attempt to measure the activity of fishers to determine how much food the animals required to function. In one case, a fisher was blamed for an attack on a 6-year-old boy. Best New. The fisher and the genus Martes were determined to have descended from a common ancestor, but the fisher was distinct enough to put it in its own genus. [13], The fisher's fur changes with the season and differs slightly between sexes. It prefers the snowshoe hare and is one of the few animals able to prey successfully on porcupines. Some zoos have had difficulty keeping fishers alive since they are susceptible to many diseases in captivity. The name comes from colonial Dutch fisse or visse due to its resemblance to the European polecat (Mustela putorius). [65] In 1999, 16,638 pelts were sold in Canada for C$449,307 at an average price of $27. No major differences are seen between the Pleistocene fisher and the modern fisher. [67], Fishers have also been captured and bred by zoos, but they are not a common zoo species. In western forests, where fire regularly removes understory debris, fishers show a preference for riparian woodland habitat. In one case, a fisher was blamed for an attack on a 6-year-old boy. Other Native American names for the fisher are Chipewyan thacho[2] and Carrier chunihcho,[3] both meaning "big marten", and Wabanaki uskool. fisher population had recovered enough to establish a limited trapping season in the western U.P. Men. Female fishers give birth to a litter of three or four kits in the spring. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources has confirmed the return of the medium-sized mammal known as fishers to the Lower Peninsula after a near 75-year absence. There were some broken branches, tufts of fur, and claw marks where the lynx was trying to get away. The sexes have similar physical features, but they are sexually dimorphic in size, with the male being much larger than the female. Fishers are generally thought of as secretive and rarely observed. Lion ~ Mink ~ Muskrats ~ Opossums ~ Otter ~ Porcupines ~ Raccoon ~ Skunks ~ Weasel ~ Whitetail Deer ~ Moose. Fishers have few predators besides humans. Tanya Dewey (editor), Animal Diversity Web. Pennant examined the same specimen, but called it a fisher, unaware of Buffon's earlier description. [4] In 1936, pelts were being offered for sale in New York City for $450–750 per pelt. In the French language, the pelt of a polecat is also called fiche or fichet. Sort of, only louder and uglier", "The Fisher: New Hampshire's Rodney Dangerfield", "Anticoagulant Rodenticides on our Public and Community Lands: Spatial Distribution of Exposure and Poisoning of a Rare Forest Carnivore", "Patterns of Natural and Human-Caused Mortality Factors of a Rare Forest Carnivore, the Fisher (Pekania pennanti) in California", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fisher_(animal)&oldid=991335499, Fauna of the Great Lakes region (North America), Short description is different from Wikidata, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the Encyclopedia Americana with a Wikisource reference, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the New International Encyclopedia, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from The American Cyclopaedia, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from The American Cyclopaedia with a Wikisource reference, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 29 November 2020, at 14:51. 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