But never tease a weasel,
This is very good advice.
A weasel will not like--
And teasing
isn’t
nice!
from Never Tease a Weasel
written by Jean Conder Soule
illustrations by George Booth
MacMillan Publishing Company, 1964
When I was young, Captain & Tennille sang about Susie and Sam in “Muskrat Love.” When my younger daughter was growing up, her best friend had two pet ferrets. My grandmother had a mink stole, but that was a long time ago.
Count in chinchillas, otters, and fishers, too. Until the day before yesterday, I had never heard of a fisher. All these mammals are branches on the weasel family tree, so to speak. All are cute. And all but fishers are common.
But something is changing. For the good. And the Ohio Division of Wildlife (ODW) is excited. Cleveland Metroparks announced the recent sighting (12/6/25) of a fisher. It is the first recorded sighting in Cuyahoga County since the 1800s when the animals were deemed extirpated (extinct in a local area).
They are naturally shy to the point of being reclusive, so it would be hard to see one even if they were as common as chipmunks.
A wildlife camera caught an elusive fisher one evening in the park. It was identified by Andy Burmesch, Wildlife Management Coordinator for the Cleveland Metroparks, and verified by the ODW.
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) lists fishers as a “Species of Special Interest.” It does not carry the federal endangered or threatened status and human intervention would probably not increase their population (ODNR.gov.)
You might be curious. I was. What even is a fisher?
Fishers are one of the largest mammals in the weasel family. They can grow from four to six feet long. That counts their furry tails which are about half as long as their bodies. Fishers are slender like weasels with short legs and pointy faces, large roundish ears, and retractable claws.
Fishers are omnivores, but prefer small rodents, squirrels, rabbits, birds, and eggs. They are solitary and like their place in the forest.
They don’t hibernate and are crepuscular, awake at dusk and dawn.
It was of course, unregulated trapping (to collect their lush pelts) and “widespread habitat destruction” that are blamed for the fishers’ disappearance. But wildlife experts were surprised to discover that as the fisher population plummeted, the porcupine population exploded. And an even bigger surprise, the porcupine population explosion was the direct result of the decimation of fishers. In the 1950s state wildlife agencies stepped in to re-introduce fishers, and balance between fishers and porcupines began to normalize.
But how can a fisher eat a porcupine, you might ask skeptically. According to NorthernWoodlands.org, “[a]utopsies of fisher-killed porcupines often show broken necks and smashed teeth, sure evidence of a fall.” Who performed the autopsies? Smashed teeth? It sounds a little fishy, but I’m not an expert and fishers are good climbers. They could probably knock a porcupine out of a tree and break its skull or neck.
The author of the article does call attacking porcupines “a risky business and occasional fishers are found dead from quill injuries.” While a porcupine’s natural predators include red foxes, wolves, bears even great horned owls, the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests says, “the porcupine’s only real predator is the fisher.”
And they really are making a comeback. Besides the one in Cuyahoga county, Farm and Dairy reported in September of 2023 that 30 fishers have been sighted in Ohio since 2013. Most experts believe the Ohio fishers wandered over from West Virginia and Pennsylvania where they were reintroduced in 1969 and the 1990s respectively.
Fishers are not the only wildlife to make a comeback in Ohio. It’s hard to imagine the population of white-tailed deer, with their estimated numbers reaching over 800,000, has ever been threatened. Deer have been part of Ohio for well over 11,000 years, and have provided food for wolves, large cats and indigenous people.
After the Revolutionary War, new Ohioans quickly took down ancient forests to make room for their homes and families. By 1909, white-tailed deer experienced their own extirpation. Even if you could find one, deer hunting was outlawed in all 88 counties. It took Federal money made available to the states by Franklin Delano Roosevelt to reestablish forest lands, and regulations by the Division of Wildlife to encourage deer to return. Now the controversy revolves around deer with no active predators in our city parks and deer competing with farmers who are trying to keep them out of their crops.
Due to the same forces at work, wild turkeys also experienced extirpation in 1904. Not until the 1950s, when wild turkeys were reintroduced to Ohio, did their population start to recover. Spring turkey hunting season opened again in 1966, and by 1999 wild turkeys were found in all 88 counties.
Despite my mention of hunting, and even though I understand on some level the need to keep deer (especially) populations manageable, and even though I would not shoot a deer or even a squirrel (but maybe a chipmunk), I don’t like to see guns and people in the same sentence.
BTW: It’s illegal to hunt or trap fishers in Ohio.
I’m getting very close to the end of The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman (Scribner, 2023). In a magical blending of two lifetimes, Mia, the main character, discovers love when she slips into the lifetime of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Ms. Hoffman leaves her readers to answer the question: Can a kiss last a lifetime? and ponder the connection between literature and experience.
Be curious! (and feed the wildlife,
from a safe distance)
This is very good advice.
A weasel will not like--
And teasing
isn’t
nice!
from Never Tease a Weasel
written by Jean Conder Soule
illustrations by George Booth
MacMillan Publishing Company, 1964
When I was young, Captain & Tennille sang about Susie and Sam in “Muskrat Love.” When my younger daughter was growing up, her best friend had two pet ferrets. My grandmother had a mink stole, but that was a long time ago.
Count in chinchillas, otters, and fishers, too. Until the day before yesterday, I had never heard of a fisher. All these mammals are branches on the weasel family tree, so to speak. All are cute. And all but fishers are common.
But something is changing. For the good. And the Ohio Division of Wildlife (ODW) is excited. Cleveland Metroparks announced the recent sighting (12/6/25) of a fisher. It is the first recorded sighting in Cuyahoga County since the 1800s when the animals were deemed extirpated (extinct in a local area).
They are naturally shy to the point of being reclusive, so it would be hard to see one even if they were as common as chipmunks.
A wildlife camera caught an elusive fisher one evening in the park. It was identified by Andy Burmesch, Wildlife Management Coordinator for the Cleveland Metroparks, and verified by the ODW.
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) lists fishers as a “Species of Special Interest.” It does not carry the federal endangered or threatened status and human intervention would probably not increase their population (ODNR.gov.)
You might be curious. I was. What even is a fisher?
Fishers are one of the largest mammals in the weasel family. They can grow from four to six feet long. That counts their furry tails which are about half as long as their bodies. Fishers are slender like weasels with short legs and pointy faces, large roundish ears, and retractable claws.
Fishers are omnivores, but prefer small rodents, squirrels, rabbits, birds, and eggs. They are solitary and like their place in the forest.
They don’t hibernate and are crepuscular, awake at dusk and dawn.
It was of course, unregulated trapping (to collect their lush pelts) and “widespread habitat destruction” that are blamed for the fishers’ disappearance. But wildlife experts were surprised to discover that as the fisher population plummeted, the porcupine population exploded. And an even bigger surprise, the porcupine population explosion was the direct result of the decimation of fishers. In the 1950s state wildlife agencies stepped in to re-introduce fishers, and balance between fishers and porcupines began to normalize.
But how can a fisher eat a porcupine, you might ask skeptically. According to NorthernWoodlands.org, “[a]utopsies of fisher-killed porcupines often show broken necks and smashed teeth, sure evidence of a fall.” Who performed the autopsies? Smashed teeth? It sounds a little fishy, but I’m not an expert and fishers are good climbers. They could probably knock a porcupine out of a tree and break its skull or neck.
The author of the article does call attacking porcupines “a risky business and occasional fishers are found dead from quill injuries.” While a porcupine’s natural predators include red foxes, wolves, bears even great horned owls, the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests says, “the porcupine’s only real predator is the fisher.”
And they really are making a comeback. Besides the one in Cuyahoga county, Farm and Dairy reported in September of 2023 that 30 fishers have been sighted in Ohio since 2013. Most experts believe the Ohio fishers wandered over from West Virginia and Pennsylvania where they were reintroduced in 1969 and the 1990s respectively.
Fishers are not the only wildlife to make a comeback in Ohio. It’s hard to imagine the population of white-tailed deer, with their estimated numbers reaching over 800,000, has ever been threatened. Deer have been part of Ohio for well over 11,000 years, and have provided food for wolves, large cats and indigenous people.
After the Revolutionary War, new Ohioans quickly took down ancient forests to make room for their homes and families. By 1909, white-tailed deer experienced their own extirpation. Even if you could find one, deer hunting was outlawed in all 88 counties. It took Federal money made available to the states by Franklin Delano Roosevelt to reestablish forest lands, and regulations by the Division of Wildlife to encourage deer to return. Now the controversy revolves around deer with no active predators in our city parks and deer competing with farmers who are trying to keep them out of their crops.
Due to the same forces at work, wild turkeys also experienced extirpation in 1904. Not until the 1950s, when wild turkeys were reintroduced to Ohio, did their population start to recover. Spring turkey hunting season opened again in 1966, and by 1999 wild turkeys were found in all 88 counties.
Despite my mention of hunting, and even though I understand on some level the need to keep deer (especially) populations manageable, and even though I would not shoot a deer or even a squirrel (but maybe a chipmunk), I don’t like to see guns and people in the same sentence.
BTW: It’s illegal to hunt or trap fishers in Ohio.
I’m getting very close to the end of The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman (Scribner, 2023). In a magical blending of two lifetimes, Mia, the main character, discovers love when she slips into the lifetime of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Ms. Hoffman leaves her readers to answer the question: Can a kiss last a lifetime? and ponder the connection between literature and experience.
Be curious! (and feed the wildlife,
from a safe distance)
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