Rare Animal May Be Headed Back To The Wild

Most Nova Scotians have never seen a fisher in the wild. This large member of the weasel family, valued for its fur, has been driven by trapping and lost mature forest to the brink of extirpation in this province. Not many remain. However, one is at the Hope for Wildlife rehabilitation center in Seaforth and it may soon be headed back to the wild. 




Ronda Brennan photo

  The fisher is one of the larger members of the mustelid (weasel) family, second in size in Nova Scotia only to the otter. Its general coloration and features in some ways suggest a smaller version of an even larger and geographically more distant cousin, the wolverine. However, the largest males seldom weigh more than six kilograms.



In July 2010, when a six-week old fisher came to Hope for Wildlife after being injured on a highway near Weymouth, probably by a car, the staff at that rescue and rehabilitation center faced a formidable task. The animal, named Henderson by a local veterinarian was not expected to survive, but he did. This left Hope for Wildlife with the task of healing and raising a rare animal whose species they had no experience with.

Because the fisher is a predator, it’s natural to learn survival skills by spending year or more with its family group. The problem was, this animal’s family group was somewhere on the Sissaboo River, far from its pen at Seaforth.

For Hope for Wildlife director Hope Swinimer, the fisher’s recovery, maturing and acquiring survival skills all needed special attention.

“I try to go by the rules that all the animals that come to our facility are important,” says Swinimer. “However, when an animal like this comes in, there’s so much to learn and so much help is needed. I even contacted people in the United States on their techniques on how they rehab fishers. From the point of view of a learning experience, it was huge.”

The fisher is now a young adult and will be released in a large enclosure at the Shubenacadie Wildlife Park to see if he has skills to provide for himself. If he proves to Natural Resources officials that he has, he will be freed, likely with a monitoring device to track his progress

Fortunately, a few pockets of fisher have survived and there has been a reintroduction program on the Tobeatic sanctuary of south western Nova Scotia. That may be where Henderson’s family originated, since the Sissaboo rises there. Sending a member of a threatened population home would be a good thing.