anybody here familiar with fisher cat behavior?

[magical thyme]

A fisher cat moved into the neighboring woods this fall and has been feeding in my apple orchard, typically at dawn or dusk, but also sometimes it wanders in midday, but heads straight to the orchard, eats and leaves.

Today it is hanging out in my pasture/riding ring. It's been there for about an hour, in the middle of the pasture. It moved around for a while, but now seems pretty inactive.

Its a little unsettling, since I'm not going to try to ride up there while the fisher is there and it's behavior seems out of line with what I've read is their normal behavior. My horse and dogs are vaccinated for rabies, but I'm not and my cat isn't (not my fault...a neighbor stole her this spring before her shots were due, kept her in till she thought that was her home, and then recently moved away and dumped her. I'm leaving food out for her and hoping to catch her when the snow is flying...)

[NYC_SKP]

1. Is there a fish and game or wildlife service or animal control agency you can contact?

One of these might have helpful information and might even come out to check and possibly collect the animal, especially if it's sick.

[enlightenment]

2. Perhaps you should call Animal Control?

It may not be rabid, but it might be sick.

[aikoaiko]

3. All I know is their screeching can send shivers up this camper's spine.

[Freddie]

4. A fisher cat ate my aunt's cat

My aunt had a house in the woods in the White Mts in NH (gorgeous place) and had an indoor/outdoor cat. Needless to say her next cat was strictly indoors.

[FarCenter]

5. According to wiki, they hunt at dawn and dusk.

I'd be suspicious of one that is active in the middle of the day.

[2naSalit]

9. Just 'cause wiki says so

It isn't the end all info...

apparently they do come out in the daytime.

And there are other examples on that site.

As with many wild animals that are said to be active at specific times of the day/night/dusk/dawn, there are many instances that are not in keeping with that info. I see owls in mid-day, foxes, pine martens and other allegedly dawn/dusk active animals.

I'm not disputing that there could be a problem with the animal the OP refers to but I would caution against "carved in stone" presumptions about their activity.

[2naSalit]

6. Is it really bothering anything or anyone?

Wildlife functions on a different time frame than we scheduled to smitherines humans. Perhaps it will move to another location when the apples are gone and no pets are available for food source. And what's the weather like? It might just be enjoying the weather. But it might have issues with rabies or some kind of parasite. Is there some kind of wildlife sanctuary in your area that you can call? Wildife Services or F&G will probably kill it first and check it out later.

[magical thyme]

11. turns out it was a porcupine...

I tossed an apple from a safe distance and woke it up. A couple more apples and it had headed back home to the woods. I'm thinking it probably was tipsy/sleepy from the fermented apples.

It is a sleeping in kind of day. Indian Summer warm, cloudy and preparing to rain tonight and tomorrow, so it may have been gorging in advance.

[2naSalit]

12. Indeed.

Apples have that effect on all kinds of animals! I lived in a house with a couple huge Mulberry trees in the yard and after the ripe-time that birds got really whacko, they flung dung at us, the house,and crashed into the windows... and when I lived near an apple orchard during a different time we had everything that lived in our woods getting tanked on fermented apples... it was kind of fun to watch but you had to watch out for them getting a bad hangover and deciding we were to blame!

Glad it turned out to be just a sleeping p'pine!

[magical thyme]

7. I headed up that way -- not too close. It's a porcupine, not a fisher!

I got just close enough to see if it was moving at all, because it hadn't moved in about 15 minutes. I thought I saw it's head move, so I threw an apple from a safe distance. The apple bounced near it and then rolled by and it got up, puffed out its quills, which was when I could ID it, and started waddling to the woods.

So I threw a couple more apples at it and clapped my hands. Clapping my hands was too much and it curled up in a defensive ball, but then it started waddling away again. It's gone back to the woods now.

Maybe it got drunk on old, fermented apples and curled up to take a nap.

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. Maybe it was Oscar. n/t

[2naSalit]

10. That's a good one!

Maybe a spotting scope or some strong binos would be a sound investment?

I live out in some big wild country and nearly everyone has some kind of optics like that so they can see what that thing is way over there.

[magical thyme]

13. until it puffed out its quills, I couldn't be sure if it was a male fisher or porcupine...

but I was guessing fisher because the scat it has left behind looked considerably more like fisher scat than porcupine. Although none of the pix I googled were of critters that were filling up on apples. Its welcome to my leftover apples. I leave them specifically for the wildlife.

I just worry about rabies because it is relatively new to the area and a lot of locals leave their pets unlicensed and unvaccinated. And I worry about my cat because she was stolen by neighbors a few weeks before her spring shots, went totally missing for 2-3 weeks, and since then other than slipping into the barn in the middle of the night to grab a snack, I didn't see her again until they moved a few weeks ago and dumped her. Can't tell you my shock when I saw her on their deck. The newcomers said she walked right into the place like she owned it while they were moving in. So after the shelter spent a year taming her and I adopted her, she's returned to feral and at risk.

[intaglio]

15. Yet oddly Fishers are the primary predator of porcupine

so you may have some fishers in the area.

[magical thyme]

17. oh there's no question there are fishers in the area...

My dog Jake and I were awakened one summer at 2 in the morning several years back by a fisher's screech...right outside my bedroom window

The question was what was in my pasture all afternoon. I was assuming it was a fisher, but turned out to be a porcupine. It spent the afternoon snoozing in the middle of my pasture. It was still there as it was turning dark. If it's there in the morning, I'll be concerned...

[magical thyme]

14. craps, it's come back...

it's sniffing around the pasture again in the same area it was in before. I don't know what the attraction is there -- I tossed the apples a bit into the woods after it specifically so they wouldn't attract it back..

I have 3 consecutive large circle tracks where I ride and do groundwork with the filly. It's smack in the middle of the 3rd ring.

[Aerows]

16. It could be both?

Fishers are one of the only natural predators of porcupines. Porcupines are herbavores, too, so I don't see them getting rabies, but the fishers might be a different story. You likely have a combination!

I had a raccoon problem recently. I think I'd take a fisher cat and a porcupine problem over those suckers.

[magical thyme]

18. herbavores can get rabies. any mammal can.

The question is who could bite a porcupine to pass on the rabies. Most likely a fisher, but animals with rabies don't exhibit common sense, just uncommon aggression, so any number of mammals would be able to pass it on.

[Aerows]

19. Actually no, not all of them have the propensity to get rabies.

Opossums are just about unable to get it with only 1 in 800 getting it with exposure. That doesn't include the ones that do not get exposure. They have a low body temperature and it doesn't allow the incubation of the bacterium.

Porcupines, don't have a body temperature capable of it, either. They refrain from eating meat and are herbivores, so folks saying they carry rabies are ... wrong. Not to say you want them around pets or anyone, just clearing up the "they are rabid" fallacy.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1800957/

It's usually raccoons that accompany the area that are the problem.

[magical thyme]

20. from the mspca and petmd

http://www.mspca.org/programs/wildlife-resources/species-information/about-porcupines.html

PUBLIC HEALTH CONCERNS

Porcupines do not carry any communicable diseases that are of concern to humans, except, as with any mammal, they can contract rabies.

Porcupines are primarily nocturnal animals who rest during the day in hollow trees and logs, underground burrows or in crevices found in rocky areas.


http://www.petmd.com/blogs/fullyvetted/2007/may/porcupines-and-dogs%C2%A6-prickly-pattern-conflict

For starters, porcupines carry rabies. Of course, that presupposes that the dog can get anywhere close enough to get bitten.

My concern was the napping in the middle of an open field is abnormal behavior for a fisher cat and for a porcupine. And yes, rabies is very rare in opossums. It was not an opossum napping in my pasture; it was/is a porcupine. So now I'm less worried about rabies than my dogs getting quilled. They are not the brightest when it comes to porcupines.