Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Wild Kingdom


As I was driving from Rockport to Gloucester early this evening (Upper Main near the vernal pools for locals), an animal darted across the road in front of me. It looked like it was about three feet long, weasel-like, with dark brown to black lush fur. It was my first visual sighting of the seldom-seen fisher cat. I had been warned about how dangerous they are to small pets when I first moved here; Leslie calls them "teddy bears with fangs." People wonder how many of the cat disappearances that have been attributed to coyotes are actually due to the fisher cat.
Mass Wildlife has an informative article about the fisher. It emphasizes how secretive and solitary they are, so I feel lucky to have seen one, especially in a situation where I didn't have to protect a pet.

1 comment:

Bill Thoms said...

I saw the same animal, a large, probably male fisher cat, in the woods above Stony Brook near Johnson's Quarry.