For 12 years, Ohio residents have called in at least 40 sightings of a sleek, slender-bodied mammal traipsing through the state.
But it wasn’t until December 13 that Cleveland Metroparks — a series of nature preserves in Greater Cleveland, Ohio — confirmed that they had verifiable proof that fishers had returned to Cuyahoga County.
Until then, it had been nearly 200 years since the mammal had officially returned to the state.
“Earlier this year, a fisher (Pekania pennanti) was recorded on a wildlife camera in Cleveland Metroparks and identified by Andy Burmesch, Cleveland Metroparks Wildlife Management Coordinator,” Cleveland Metroparks shared in an Instagram post.
“The Ohio Division of Wildlife confirmed that this sighting in Cleveland Metroparks is the first record in Cuyahoga County since the species originally disappeared in the 1800s.”
Fishers, also known as fisher cats, are a type of forest-dwelling mammal with furry brown coats and long, cat-like tails. As a mustelid, fishers belong to the same family of animals that includes weasels, otters, badgers, martens, ferrets, polecats, and wolverines.
In their Instagram caption, Cleveland Metroparks said that fishers had been “extirpated,” or completely wiped out, of Ohio by the mid-1800s due to “unregulated harvest and loss of habitat.”
Throughout the United States, fishers face varying degrees of endangerment. In California, the Southern Sierra Nevada fisher population is federally listed as endangered, while fishers on the West Coast and throughout the Northern Rockies have been submitted for federal protection.
According to the National Park Service, healthy fisher populations reflect “a well-functioning, mature environment.”
“Fishers also help control rodent populations, both large and small species, and have been reintroduced in some parts of the country to help keep in check forest-stand damaging porcupines,” the National Park Service said in a press release.
“They increasingly appear to be filling, at least partially, a niche left vacant when top-tier predators (wolves and mountain lions mostly) were extirpated from the region.”
For Ohioans, the trail camera footage is a promising sign of the rare animals’ return to the region.
“This is tremendously exciting, as this is yet another extirpated native Ohio mammal species to be documented for the first time in Cleveland Metroparks,” Cleveland Metroparks said in December.
“The return of fishers and other extirpated species like otters, bobcats and trumpeter swans are a result of conservation efforts and emphasize the importance of our healthy forests, wetlands, waterways, and natural areas in Cleveland Metroparks.”
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Header image via Cleveland Metroparks/Instagram
