![]() ![]() An omnivore, the fisher feeds on a wide variety of small animals and occasionally on fruits and mushrooms. Although an agile climber, it spends most of its time on the forest floor, where it prefers to forage around fallen trees. The fisher prefers to hunt in the full forest. During the summer, the color becomes more mottled, as the fur goes through a moulting cycle. ![]() The fur of the fisher varies seasonally, being denser and glossier in the winter. Male and female fishers look similar, but can be differentiated by size males being up to twice as large as the females. While fishers usually avoid human contact, encroachments into forest habitats have resulted in some conflicts. When pelt prices fell in the late 1940s, most fisher farming ended. However, their unusual delayed reproduction made breeding difficult. In the 1920s, when pelt prices were high, some fur farmers attempted to raise fishers. Conservation and protection measures have allowed the species to rebound, but their current range is still reduced from its historic limits. Their pelts were in such demand that they were extirpated from several parts of the United States in the early part of the 20th century. They have been trapped since the 18th century for their fur. įishers have few predators besides humans. Other Native American names for the fisher are Chipewyan thacho and Carrier chunihcho, both meaning "big marten", and Wabanaki uskool. Cree ocêk, Ojibwa ojiig) borrowed by fur traders. In some regions, the fisher is known as a pekan, derived from its name in the Abenaki language, or wejack, an Algonquian word (cf. The fisher is closely related to, but larger than, the American marten ( Martes americana) and Pacific marten ( Martes caurina). It is sometimes referred to as a fisher cat, although it is not a cat. It is a member of the mustelid family, and is in the monospecific genus Pekania. The fisher ( Pekania pennanti) is a carnivorous mammal native to North America, a forest-dwelling creature whose range covers much of the boreal forest in Canada to the northern United States. ![]()
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