Meet Our Rhode Island Fishers!

F01 is a juvenile female and the very first fisher we have captured. We caught her and her sibling on our trail cams multiple times during the summer, so it was awesome to see her grow up into the healthy, young fisher she is! She has a tiny white blaze on her chest ,and was not shy to show off for TV.

M01 (Linus) is also a juvenile, and is the first male we've collared. For a juvenile, he's packing some weight at 4.5kg! M01 visited our traps one weekend when we had them out of service, where he helped himself to the fleece blanket we left in the trap - which promptly gave him the label as the blanket thief. He liked to sit flat on his bum in the recovery kennel and stretch his front paws out wide like he was lounging in a La-Z-Boy.

F02 (Lucy) is a subadult female with a very peppy personality. If you compare her more pointy head shape to the more round and robust head of M02, you can see the distinct difference between males and females.

M02 is one of our largest fishers yet, weighing in at 5.3kg (11.6lbs) - an he is only a year old! He was the calmest individual and really just wanted to continue snuggling into the warm blankets in the kennel. 

F03 (Sandy) is our first snow capture of the season. She is the smallest fisher we've caught, but by far the most stunning! It is not super common for fisher in the northeastern U.S. to have such blonde hair in the winter months, but this little lady was totally rocking it. 

​While we don't have a release video of M03, I hope you enjoy seeing his coat shining in the sun as he bounds away to freedom! This photo is curtesy of Claudia Cooper. Her husband, Fred Cooper helped us by catching this subadult male for the project.

F04 (Layla) is our heaviest juvenile female weighing in at 2.37kg. She was super healthy and has a great set of chompers.

F05 (Queenie) is our very first adult female. She is also an expecting mother! So far, she has been quite elusive and hard to track.

F06 (Margeori) is another pregnant adult female. Her name is a combination of "ma" for mother, "r" for research on the ground "geo" in Rhode Island "ri". Thanks to Heidi Ganoe for the thoughtful and clever spelling. Margeori was one of the more talkative fishers we've caught.

F07 (Lola) ​is our third pregnant female, however she is a first-time momma! We are super excited to see how she does raising her first kits this spring and establishing her territory as a new adult.

​F08 is a pregnant adult female who enjoys hardcore parkour. She is our heaviest female weighing in at 2.5kg and has gorgeous white markings under her armpits and on her groin. Upon release, she launched herself off a tree trunk to rapidly change direction! ​

M04 (Lobstah) is our biggest male at 6.4 kg, and he still had some room to grow! He was caught near the coast and is teaching us a lot about how east coast fishers navigate some densely populated areas.

F09 (Church) left us standing there shaking our heads. We believe she is Sandy's mother, and she was pregnant with another set of kits when we captured her. However, she managed to wriggle out of her collar before we even released her - extremely poor collar fitting on our part.

M05 (Snoopy) had a strange look to him with his long nose and sheepish personality making Snoopy seem like a well-fitting name. 

M06 (Woodstock), as mentioned above, this juvenile male was caught on the same day about 100m from Snoopy - thus the pair's names go hand in hand. Unfortunately, we don't have a release video of Woodstock.

The third capture of the day landed us processing a juvenile female, F10 (Rosalita). 'Lita, Lola, and Layla all were caught in the same pair of traps, suggesting 'Lita and Layla might be Lola's kits from the previous year. We won't know for sure until DNA tests come back, but the lovely ladies sure have a little pocket of heaven in the state. 

M07 (Dominick) joins the ranks as our last juvenile male. We are excited to see how he manages to secure his place on the map since his range is currently sandwiched between two big males.

F11 (Toph) is an old, pregnant female with the sweetest demeanor. Toph has been through a lot, with an old injury rendering her blind in her left eye. Even still, she manages to catch prey, maintain an extremely healthy weight, and raise her kits all on her own. 

M08 (Clint), is the oldest fisher anyone on our project has ever had in hand. He was missing quite a few teeth (including a molar!) and his canines were ground to stumps. We can only imagine how big he was in his prime. "Dyin' ain't much of a living, boy." - Josey Wales (The Outlaw, played by Clint Eastwood)

F12 (Ozzy), the final female of the season. Ozzy did not get a fancy collar, but we were able to tag her and collect critical data and samples. 

M09 (Clyde) is the final adult male of the season weighing in just below Clint at 5.3 kg. He was caught on a cold, rainy day and seemed very thankful for the warm blankets and dry crate.