Last October I introduced you to a few of My Wild Neighbours. This month I want to focus on a newcomer to the neighbourhood, first encountered in April 2020. The tale begins with a tail: a long, round tail attached to a long-bodied, short-legged critter diving over a roadside snowbank. I only saw the backside of the furry animal, but the size and shape and that long round tail suggested an otter from the nearby river.

A few days later I was snowshoeing through old spruce forest and saw some unusual tracks. In The Secret Lives of Animals I wrote about my favourite winter activity: following animal tracks on snowshoe. Tracks tell me who is out and about and where they go on this land we share. I’d been following tracks for some 15 years at that point, so I was familiar with the usual suspects. And these weren’t any of those.

I recalled the otter-like animal I’d diving over the snowbank. Otters are water weasels. When they visit, they slide along on their bellies, leaving distinctive grooves, and head straight for the pond, dipping under the ice into the frigid water. These strange tracks were in a dense stand of trees up beyond the pond. And not a belly-slide in sight. I began to wonder if there was a new kid on the block.

I soon found out. I was lingering over coffee on a sunny Easter morning and looked out the window. An animal was loping along on the far side of the frozen pond, very dark against the brilliant white snow. I grabbed my binoculars and got a good look. My suspicions were correct: It was a fisher! He – or she – did a circuit all the way around the pond before heading up into the woods.

Now this was exciting! I’d seen a wide variety of mammals in the Holler over the years, but this was the first time I’d seen a fisher. What a thrill, after so many years, to see a critter for the first time! Later that afternoon I was bundled up, sitting outside. I heard the strangest sounds coming from the woods on the far side of the pond. My go-to animals when I hear weird noises are crows – they have an astonishing repertoire of vocalizations – but this didn’t quite fit the usual cacophony of a crow mob.

Mystery solved a moment later. A fisher came barrelling out of the woods onto the ice with a second fisher hot on its heels and making those bizarre growly sounds. Growly chased the other fisher across the pond and up into the woods. A minute later he came back down, loped back across the pond and headed back up into the forest. A very exciting Easter Sunday here in the boonies!

(Above photos taken in 2021)

Fishers are members of the weasel family (Mustelidae) which includes otters, minks, martens, and ermines, plus off-island species such as skunks, badgers, wolverines and other weasels. The name fisher is misleading. Unlike their water-weasel cousins, otters and minks, fishers rarely fish. These carnivores feed mainly on hares, rodents, grouse, and, alas, the occasional small pet. We don’t have porcupines on Cape Breton Island, but mainland fishers hunt these prickly prey. Fishers prefer mature forest habitat and are remarkably adept tree climbers. Like all members of the weasel family, fishers are fierce and punch well above their weight.

Those first sightings were in April, 2020. Fast forward to winter 2021 and once again I strapped on the snowshoes and began checking out local animal tracks. In February I posted a photo of some mystery tracks in The Secret Lives of Animals. The snow was too soft to form a clear impression, but I found other mystery tracks soon after, possibly from the same creature. After that I started seeing these new tracks all over the place – near the house and through the woods and all over the pond. As you can imagine, I had my suspicions as to the likely culprit.

A track is evidence but a sighting is proof. One day I looked out and there he was, poking around in the snow beside the house. My compost pile is under there so he may have been rooting for root veggies. On the other hand, the local squirrels have a network of snow tunnels there too, so he may have been hunting something more appetizing than rotten banana peels.

Like coyotes and other carnivores, fishers patrol large territories. Based on all those tracks I’d been seeing, it looked like my home was smackdab in the middle of this fiesty fellah’s new territory. (After seeing Growly in action, I’m going with ‘he’.)

My new neighbour had no qualms about inviting himself right up onto my deck. I think these predators, like Ollie the barred owl (Hoots in the Holler) and the great horned owl (My Wild Neighbours) like my deck for the same reason humans like hunting blinds in trees – all the better for spotting prey. Plus fisher’s nose may have led him up onto the deck after squirrel’s scent, since squirrel seems to think I built the deck purely for his pleasure. One thing for sure, fisher is just as able to climb posts and trees as his wily prey. Watch out squirrel!

Fishers, known locally as fisher cats, are not unknown in this area. Some of my neighbours (the human ones I mean ;-) have seen them now and then, but they aren’t common. It does seem that there have been more frequent sightings of fishers around the island lately, so perhaps they are making a comeback. (Fishers virtually disappeared from Nova Scotia about 100 years ago due to trapping and habitat loss but were reintroduced to the eastern mainland in the 1960’s.) Or, as someone suggested, maybe we are seeing more fishers around because ongoing clearcutting is forcing them to find new territories. The current population and status of this animal seems to be yet one more mystery.

So now here we are in 2022 and it’s snowshoe time again. I haven’t seen a fisher-in-the-fur lately, but I have been seeing tracks in the woods and on the frozen pond as fisher prowls his territory. He’s not a mystery mammal anymore, or even the new kid on the block. He’s just another one of my wild neighbours, hanging out here in the Holler.

Sue McKay Miller
January 31st, 2022

p.s. Please share your own fisher sightings and observations in the comments. As always, I welcome any corrections or additional information – I’m still learning!