Weasel-like creatures return with mixed results

By STU WOO
The Providence Journal
Friday, August 17, 2007

For two weeks, Darlene DiRocco carried an aluminum baseball bat as she walked Banks, her golden retriever.

The elementary school teacher is no Barry Bonds; she's never played baseball. But she was prepared to take a mighty swing if a fisher -- a weasel-like animal that she says tried to bite Banks -- ever showed up again.

"If it gets on my dog's back, I think I would whack it off," she says. "I don't think I would kill it, but I would hurt it."

Fortunately for DiRocco, she never had to. A neighbor caught what she believes is the delinquent animal, and Rhode Island's Department of Environmental Management whisked it away.

Often referred to as "fisher cats," the normally secretive animals had been absent from the state for 200 years. But two dog attacks in West Greenwich last month confirm what Rhode Island wildlife biologists have been noticing for the past few years: That fishers are back and thriving.

It's a good thing, experts say.

"Here's a species that's a success story, in the way it was expatriated from the state for a couple of centuries," says Charlie Brown, a wildlife biologist, "and basically on its own accord, it's come back to Rhode Island."

Though many locals call them fisher cats, the animals are neither prolific fish-eaters nor part of the cat family. They are Mustelids, which also include weasels, ferrets and wolverines. It is said they got the fisher cat label from the French word fitchet, used to describe a European polecat, another Mustelid.

Brown says fishers retreated to northern New England after humans started turning forests into farmland and towns. Starting about 20 years ago, fishers began reappearing as forests replaced abandoned farmland. He says he has no idea how many fishers live in the state, but since they have few, if any, natural predators here, they are here to stay. He thinks they are primarily living in the rural sections of Washington, Kent and Providence counties.

That's not exactly what DiRocco wants to hear. She says that on July 20, while she was walking her dog a fisher came out of the woods and ran at Banks, trying to claw and bite him.

She yanked Banks' leash and the two sprinted to their house. When she looked over her shoulder, she saw the fisher chasing them, but it finally retreated.

This is what is known about fishers: They are usually 3 to 4 feet long. Males usually weigh as much as 16 pounds, while females tend to be much smaller, weighing up to 6 pounds. They have dark brown fur, with patches of black and gray. Their bushy tails make up a third of their length. They are excellent climbers, though they hunt mostly on ground.

With their quickness, agility and sharp claws and fang-like teeth, the normally solitary animals usually prey on small mammals such as squirrels, mice and porcupines.

Biologists say people with fishers in their neighborhoods have no reason to fear a human attack. As for pets, Brown urges people to use common sense.

"If you're going to keep your cats out, leave them out at night, it might be reasonable to expect some problems," he says.

Even those who think they've been victimized by fishers have mixed feelings.

Two of DiRocco's neighbors, Kerry and Robert Beaudry, actually trapped a fisher two weeks after seeing one viciously bite their 80-pound German shepherd, Holly, in the jaw. Baiting it with a pound of beaver meat one evening, Robert arrived home the next afternoon to find it in the cage -- playing on its back and making a purring sound.

"It looked kind of cute and cuddly," he says. "I looked over at it and said, I couldn't leave it in there for any amount of time."

Then he approached the cage, and it suddenly started rattling the cage and snarling, reminding him of the bite that left the now-healed Holly with a bloodied jaw. Still, the Beaudrys let the DEM official relocate the fisher, because Kerry says they would have felt bad about killing it.