Species: Martes pennanti
Fisher
Species
Encyclopedia of Puget Sound
Articles:
This article was originally published by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife as part of its annual report Threatened and Endangered Wildlife in Washington.
Classification
Kingdom
Animalia
Phylum
Craniata
Class
Mammalia
Order
Carnivora
Family
Mustelidae
Genus
Martes
NatureServe
Classification
Other Global Common Names
pékan
Informal Taxonomy
Animals, Vertebrates - Mammals - Carnivores
Formal Taxonomy
Animalia - Craniata - Mammalia - Carnivora - Mustelidae - Martes - paraphyletic.
Ecology and Life History
Short General Description
A fur-bearing mammal (fisher).
Habitat Type Description
Terrestrial
Migration
true - false - false - See Zielinski et al. (2004) for information on home range characteristics in California.
Non-migrant
true
Locally Migrant
false
Food Comments
Diet consists primarily of mammals (small rodents, shrews, squirrels, hares, muskrat, beaver, porcupine, raccoon, deer carrion); also birds, other small animals, carrion, and fruit.
Reproduction Comments
Reportedly breeds late February-April or March-May, peak in March (late March-April in Manitoba); females mate probably within days of giving birth. Gestation lasts l year, including an 11-month period before implantation. Litter averages about 3 throughout the range. Births occur primarily from March to mid-April (sometimes in February or May in some areas). Young are mobile by 8 weeks, weaned in 2.5-4 months; separation from the mother occurs in the fifth month, in late summer or early fall. In Maine, young are weaned from mid-May to early June, independent probably in late August or early September (Arthur and Krohn 1991). Sexually mature in 1-2 years; not all adult females breed in a given year. Apparently promiscuous breeding. Very few males live more than 4 years, and less than 10% of females live more than 4 years.
Ecology Comments
Solitary except during the breeding season. <br><br>Home range has been estimated at 10-800 sq km by snow tracking, 7-78 sq km by telemetry using minimum convex polygon model; generally the ranges of adults of the same sex do not overlap. In Maine, home ranges of females were stable between seasons and years, but males moved extensively in late winter and early spring and their ranges shifted between years. In New Hampshire, mean annual home range was about 15-25 sq km, with daily movements usually were 1.5-3.0 km. In southern Quebec, mean home range size was 5.4 sq km for females and 9.2 sq km for males (Garant and Crete 1997). Has been recorded moving 90 km in 3 days (see Nowak 1991). <br><br>Population density in favorable habitat has been estimated at up to about 1 per 3-11 sq km in summer, 1 per 8-20 sq km in winter (Arthur et al. 1989). In southern Quebec, density was estimated at about 3 individuals per 10 sq km; the high density was atrributed to the absence of trapping (Garant and Crete 1997).
Length
103
Weight
8200
Conservation Status
NatureServe Global Status Rank
G5
Global Status Last Reviewed
2005-11-16
Global Status Last Changed
1997-09-25
Distribution
Conservation Status Map
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Global Range
H - >2,500,000 square km (greater than 1,000,000 square miles) - H - Fishers range from Quebec, the Maritime Provinces, and New England west across boreal Canada to southeastern Alaska, south in the western mountains to Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and California, and formerly south to Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Recently the species has expanded its range in the eastern United States, and it has been reintroduced in areas from which it was extirpated, including West Virginia, with some of the latter individuals wandering into Virginia (Handley 1991). The species is relatively abundant in the eastern provinces of Canada, with low populations in British Columbia (USFWS, Federal Register, 1 March 1996).
Global Range Code
H
Global Range Description
>2,500,000 square km (greater than 1,000,000 square miles)