Friday, February 27, 2009

Cool Wildlife Bulletin


I saw a fisher cat yesterday. It was broad daylight - around 9:30 am - and it ran across the road in front of my car, no more than 8 or 10 feet from me. It looked just like this picture. Waaay cool.

Fishers are large martens - up to 4 feet - and they have been recorded preying on lynxes and bobcats, as well as house cats and other small mammals. So that's why The Cat of COG spends his nights indoors. According to online sources, they are elusive and nocturnal and, therefore, very seldom seen. So I was pretty lucky to see this one.

2 comments:

Vivi said...

Let me try again.

We thought, for a while, that we saw a fisher cat at the Island in 2007 (actually, on shore, at Frederick's Marina). In the end we decided it was a pine marten instead, but they are almost as rare.

Pine martens are a lot smaller. This fisher cat looks almost like a lesser monster in a children's scary book.

The Bride said...

It was beautiful and quite big. I think close to 4 feet from nose to tail - nearly as wide as the width of the car, anyway. And it was loping across the road without a care in the world, not going that fast. It's the mating season and I wonder if that explains why it was out and about in broad daylight.

But they are fairly scary. One online site said they were second only to wolverines in viciousness. The next door neighbor's cat was killed by one.