A trail camera captured rare photographs of the elusive “fisher” in Pennsylvania — centuries after the species went extinct in the state.
The images of the rarely-seen woodland-dwelling mammal were taken by trail cameras set up by PixCams in the woods in Murrysville in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania this summer.
PixCams shared photos on Facebook that showed a fisher scrambling over a log and pressing its nose against the camera.
The organization, which operates several wildlife livestreams, says it was reviewing footage from one of its cameras recently when the team discovered that it had recorded a fisher back in July.
PixCams describes the thrill of reviewing the footage on a trail camera as similar to the feeling on “Christmas morning.”
“We like to put trail cams on big fallen logs in the woods in remote areas and leave the cams there for months before picking them up,” Pixcam writes in a Facebook post last month.
“We have found this to be a highly successful way of capturing a variety of wildlife species on camera.
“Yesterday we discovered that one of our cameras picked up a fisher back in July. This is an extremely rare animal to be seen in Murrysville, Pennsylvania — where it was captured.”
A Species That was Once Eliminated in Pennsylvania
The fisher is most commonly found in Massachusetts, New England, New York, and southern Canada, with few-and-far-between sightings in Pennsylvania.
Fishers were completely eliminated from Pennsylvania during unregulated hunting and intense deforestation in the late 1800s.
For a long time, the animals were completely extinct in the state. However, in the mid-1990s, nearly 200 fishers were reintroduced to six sites in northern Pennsylvania and the population has been slowly growing.
Fishers — which are omnivorous members of the weasel family — are one of the few animals capable of killing and eating porcupines.
Fishers rely on their keen sense of smell to track down prey and are especially known for their unique ability to hunt porcupines. Despite the porcupine’s dangerous quills, which make it a challenging target, the stealthy fisher focuses on attacking vulnerable areas like the head and face to successfully take down the rodent.
Fishers also hunt rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, mice, reptiles, and occasionally outdoor cats.
The fisher that PixCams photographed is probably around 36 inches long. But males can grow up to 48 inches long.
Image credits: All photos by Facebook/PixCams.