I've only seen one once in the woods. It was about fifty feet in front of me on a drag lane. It stopped, stared, then ran right at me halving the distance so it could get a better look at me.
Fearless critters.
Posted on 01/11/2004 4:42:44 AM PST by RJCogburn
A LONDONDERRY READER wrote to me about a fisher cat he saw kill a woodchuck for dinner, or maybe it was supper. Whatever the case, it was in daylight, which was unusual, because fishers are mostly nocturnal.
There is a greater public awareness about fisher cats now that they have morphed from just oversized weasels into the name of a baseball team. If my mail is any indicator, most people’s reaction to this was “Huh?” and then “What’s a fisher cat?”
I’m struggling here to think of another New Hampshire creature that had been any lower on the public’s radar screen. Even the common weasel, the fisher’s cousin, is better known, perhaps because “weasel” is such a popular epithet, as in “Don’t buy a car from that guy, he’s a weasel.”
The word is also fun to use as a verb, as in “I couldn’t think of a way to weasel out of writing this column.”
Perhaps newts are lesser known than fisher cats. Most people don’t have a clue about what a newt is, except that it reminds them of some politician. Ditto for voles. Most people seem aware of the existence of moles, both below ground and on their noses, but if you casually mention voles they become suspicious, as if you’re trying to make sport of them.
“You mean moles,” they’ll say, looking irritated.
Fisher cats eat moles, voles, newts and anything else they can get their little paws on, not to mention their fierce little needle-sharp teeth, which are an overbite to be reckoned with.
The bite of a fisher cat equals the force of a John Deere grapple hook picking up a 20-ton Douglas fir, or something like that. Suffice to say that you do not want to get bitten by a fisher cat or have one within several miles of your underwear.
“They go straight for the gonads, the bastids,” an old-timer once told me, his eyes darting back and forth, scanning the horizon for advancing fisher cats.
By now, careful readers who have learned to be wary will be thinking: “He’s off again, and now I don’t know just what and what not to believe here, if anything.”
Well, believe everything but the part about the gonads, although I, personally, would not go into any woods where there might be fisher cats without wearing a cast-iron cup.
You certainly cannot believe all of the literature on fisher cats.
For instance, I am constantly seeing, in print, self-styled experts describing the fisher as “the only animal capable of flipping a porcupine in order to eat it through its unprotected belly.” This would have been news to the fox I crept up on once as it was (you guessed it) flipping a porcupine. There’s a fox, I thought at the time, that could be a dealer in Las Vegas.
Notice also, please, that I have had a fine time interchanging the learned, technically correct term “fisher” with the more common and traditional “fisher cat,” a thing my wildlife biologist friends have often used against me in camp, as a cudgel. “It’s ‘fisher,’ you moron,” they yell as they beat me with firewood.
I get to use the term now with abandon, even glee, because it’s the name of a baseball team, and it’s emblazoned right up there in the sky, along with motherhood and apple pie.
John Harrigan’s address: Box 39, Colebrook 03576. E-mail: hooligan@ncia.net
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3 |
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I've only seen one once in the woods. It was about fifty feet in front of me on a drag lane. It stopped, stared, then ran right at me halving the distance so it could get a better look at me.
Fearless critters.
At the time they were supposed to be fairly rare.
Spend much of their time in the trees as I recall.
Kind of an aerial wolverine.
LOL.. I was thinking the same thing.
Guess if I go hiking in the North woods I'll pack a pair of fresh undies.
I saw that show..it was interesting.. stayed in my memory.. I had never heard of 'fishers' til then or since for that matter.
Hehe. Just had to repeat this.
Found a story of them possibly 'terrorizing' a rural NJ town. Eating the pets.
About the only critter that hunts and considers porcupines to be quite tasty.
Scientists: Possible earthquake pattern
Groups fear for Yellowstone bison
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First, if something is clearly something which is just something to chat about and not something which is remotely related to conservatism, then it is highly likely to get moved to chat. News of the weird type stuff. A lot of this gets posted, and we don't see all of it because it isn't like we Freep 24/7, so it is helpful to think in terms of "odds of something being moved".
Vanities which are not substantive are very high probability of being moved. If someone goes out of their way to basically do research and come up with a complete article of their own, then it is unlikely to be moved.
Most humor threads will get moved. Not all. And this may be at the discretion of the moderators and some might not think it is fair, or it may be because we didn't see it (if it remains).
Obviously, within these guidelines there are plenty of articles and threads on which a decision could go either way. If someone is posting many articles, most of which belong in chat and the rest are borderline, and they are refusing to post the obvious ones in chat, then we will start moving more and more of their threads to chat. If they are going to create more work for us, they don't deserve the benefit of the doubt.
Some recurring threads are grandfathered. Jim makes those calls.
There are some threads about events which technically belong in chat which sometimes will end up in the main forum (perhaps temporarily) and may even end up in one of the prominent sidebars. A good example of this would be the Live Threads for the NFL playoff games. Considering one of them today got over 1000 replies, I think you can understand why we bend the rules for them. When we bend the rules for these is at the discretion of Jim and the moderators.
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Thanks, LM
If someone posts something to breaking news that clearly is not breaking news, and it is a freep this poll or online petition or something of that sort, then the chances it will be pulled or backroomed instead of just removed from breaking approach 100%.
It was a quiet day with not even a slight breeze. On a a day like this you can shut your eyes and hear every movement within 200 yards. So I close my eyes for about 30 seconds and when I open them here is this creature walking up a log, about 20 feet away, directly at me. I never heard a thing!
I never had seen any animal like it, and it looked just as curious as I was. I trained my rifle at it as it came a little closer. It was fearless to the point of looking almost friendly. I'll never forget it.
I yelled at it and it darted off the the log and disappeared in the brush. I figured I scared it off, but it reappeared on the ridge above me, standing there staring at me, not making a sound.
I got up calmly and found another place down the mountain to hunt. I figured I must have been sitting too close to it's lair.
When I got back to camp and explained what I saw to the old timers, they explained that I saw a "Fisher" and if I ever see one that close to me again to "blast it", because "it'll rip you apart".
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