Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
How important is the fisher in controlling porcupines? For decades the state of Vermont, where fish-
ers had long been absent, suffered from a plague of porcupines. Dogs routinely encountered them and
subsequently paid a painful visit to the local veterinarian for quill removal. As noted in chapter 5,
the big rodents also gnawed on everything salty from human sweat, including tool handles and canoe
paddles—even outhouse seats! And damage to valuable timber trees, caused by porcupines chewing off
their bark near winter dens, was rampant—and costly.
The state paid a bounty on dead porcupines for many years, but, as is virtually always the case with
bounties, this measure proved ineffective. So serious had the situation become that in the late 1950s the
Department of Forests and Parks began a program of putting poisoned apples (shades of Snow White!)
in porcupines' winter dens.
Although the poisoning program was reasonably effective, Forests and Parks then began importing
fishers live-trapped in Maine. These were released throughout the state, and within a few years the por-
cupine was back in a natural balance with its habitat.
Despite its success, this program was hardly noncontroversial. New in the experience of most Ver-
monters, the fisher engendered wildly exaggerated— even hysterical—fears. Some sportsmen blamed
the fisher every time they failed to find grouse or snowshoe hares in their favorite covers, never mind
that populations of these species are notably cyclical. Rumors of fishers weighing forty pounds and
more were common. One person even phoned the Fish and Wildlife Department to report that a fisher
had killed one of his heifers and then leaped over a fence with the heifer slung over its back—a feat
beyond the prowess of even a full-grown cougar!
Letters to the editor warned of the dangers fishers posed to pets and small children. This was a gross
exaggeration, to say the least. Although the fisher, like most predators, is an opportunist, and thus will
certainly kill a house cat if it encounters one, it poses no threat to any but the very smallest dogs. As for
attacking children, this is a ridiculous assertion; fishers simply do not attack humans, even very small
children.
About twenty-five years ago, there was a great furor over the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Depart-
ment's deer management policies. Some of the more vitriolic critics resorted to making anonymous
(and completely false) allegations of moral turpitude and legal misdeeds against prominent department
employees. As a result, I was eventually asked to chair a committee to investigate these charges.
In addition to deer management policies, the department was also being criticized for not trying to
extirpate the recently reintroduced fisher. When our committee sought reasons for this, a prominent
critic—who was decent enough not to hide behind anonymity—sent us a copy of a National Geograph-
ic publication that contained the striking assertion (as nearly as I can recall it), “Its green eyes glowing
with hatred, the fisher attacks anything unfortunate enough to cross its path.”
When we asked National Geographic, normally distinguished for its impeccable science, for the
source of this astonishing description, they cited Ernest Thompson Seton. Alas for scientific accuracy,
Seton, in many ways a remarkably accurate observer of wildlife, all too often lapsed into flights of an-
thropomorphism and melodrama. This instance is a prime example! All predators are fierce when it
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