squirrel have been found in fisher stomachs in my area of NW PA but they cant be doing that much damage

PAlltheway,

Please forgive me if I approached this subject in the wrong manner. It is not my intent to insult anyone.
Let me begin by stating that I am an Adirondack trapper, however I also own a second home in Clearfield County, Pa. and hunt and trap in Clearfield, Elk, and Jefferson counties. I am very thankful to trap in the Adirondacks, but I think Pennsylvania is a beautiful state as well.
I have read the Pennsylvania study and can find no specific reference to turkeys,unless they were part of the 12% avian remains.
Sadly when I'm in Pennsylvania I frequently hear from other sportsmen knocking the presence of fishers, and frequently that they are killing off the turkeys. That study, certainly indicates that is not true. The increase in fisher has nothing to do with the decrease in turkeys. Other, unknown factors are at work. We are seeing a decrease in Adirondack fishers; reason:unknown
again, please forgive me for getting off on the wrong foot. Fishers are my passion.

Lug, you have a fisher population in SE PA. I don't know if they are eating all your turkeys or just some of your turkeys, but they do eat turkeys, and they live just about everywhere in PA at this point. They are a neat animal. I am not on some anti fisher tirade. I am on a pro-turkey, pro small game hunting, pro natural-balance-as-much-as-possible tirade. The bottle was uncorked, these Tasmanian Devils were let loose, and I do not believe the PGC had a firm or even a slight grasp on what would result. Fishers seem to have bred and spread much more and much faster than anticipated. If the population were cut in half, no one would miss them, and they would continue eating everything they find. My question is, Do fishers eat rattlesnakes?
We are calling this past summer The Year of the Rattlesnake because there were SO MANY rattlers around. I ended up killing a large male and putting a tag on him, because he was hanging around the back steps and would rattle at people trying to enter and exit the house. I don't mind moving a couple snakes every summer, but this summer they were literally under foot, in the log piles, next to the house, next to the barn, on the trails, you name it. So...will fishers act like their mongoose cousins and eat these big rattlers?

I promised to assess NW pa if i got out hunting. I did. Saw no deer. Saw many chipmunks and at least 3 different gray squirrels. No fox. Heard reds but did not see. About normal for me.

Thanks and no problemo, Fisher Man. I appreciate the nice gesture. We are all trying to figure this out, you, me, and everyone who cares about trapping and hunting, and it does need to be figured out. The last thing I want to do is sound like the fisher version of the Deer Wars guys who claimed all the deer were gone, that the PGC had released wolves and mountain lions that had axe murdered the deer herds etc But I am also frustrated by what I believe to be a gaping hole in our biological sampling and field knowledge about this really pivotal animal. You are right, a lot of us in the northcentral blame fishers for the demise of our once enormous turkey populations. Why wouldn't we? We have not been persuaded by anything presented to us, and we are trusting our eyes and ears more than anything that has been shown to us by the professional wildlife managers we revere and adore. It is not a personal attack, we are just frustrated and sad. Not too too long ago, I could sit in the living room and watch three different flocks of wild turkeys rotate through the clover lawn on any given day. Or watch them feed on acorns in the same manner. Now...if I see one or two turkeys ALL YEAR it is big news. I have fresh fisher tracks right below the house here, in the mud, as well as occasional bobcat, fox, and coyote tracks. Very infrequent turkey prints...the only factor new to the equation is the fisher.
Anyhow, happy trapping and hunting to you this season. I hope you get a pile o' fishers!

If there are as many fisher as you believe perhaps the PGC should increase the length of your season and the amount you can take.
Don't want to stick my nose in Pa. politics.
Here in New York we have our own problems too. our DEC is so political and condescending that no real improvements are taking place, due mostly in part by one arrogant, know it all regional wildlife manager.

P.S. I think your rattlers are safe from population reduction from the fishers.
Have a good day.

I'm right across the border from McKean County, Pa. The fisher population has really increased here from the PA population. I see more fisher tracks that fox and coyotes combined. See them regularly while bowhunting and release several a year while trapping coyotes. The insanity here in NY is we are given a 6 day (4 checks) season with no bag limit in late Oct. when those skins are as blue as the sky. I'd rather see them move that December.

SW Pa we have a good population of greys,reds and some fox squirrels in some areas also. We have a good fisher population locally but no season yet in our zone. I see tracks in the snow in many areas that I travel thru the season checking traps.

No doubt there is a small population SEPA. I know they have been spotted ninety minutes north of me. But in my area, lets say large parts of two Counties that I consider my stomping grounds, I am confident they do not exist or are in such small numbers that they would have no impact on any prey population. If they were here in any numbers I would know it, I'd see them and their sign and I might even catch some. All those things happen around my camp in NW Potter (my other stomping grounds), I see them and their sign and they are caught all the time.

I also don't doubt they will eat turkeys, especially poults. But I stand firm on my opinion that they are not a major predator of turkeys.




I agree they are a neat animal, a very efficient predator. I always admired mink for those same qualities. I am also pro-turkey (Spring Gobbler is my favorite hunt) and pro-small game. And I agree that releasing fisher was a mistake. There are good reasons our forefathers eliminated predators. Reintroducing them is not a good idea. When I was a kid and just starting hunting fifty years ago the mindset was still to eliminate predators and every one that presented the opportunity was killed, domestic, winged or otherwise. We had a huge small game population back then.

do you have a lot of hmong in the area or that come to hunt the area? they will decimate the squirrel population. around here the public lands are pretty scarce of squirrels because of it

As Archeryguy stated, the fisher season in NY's southern tier counties during October is the tops in stupidity. One biologist stated that those blue fisher are "still saleable". DEC seems to be pushing catching a fisher as a "trophy" versus catching valuable furbearer when it is prime and at it's best. What kind of management is that?
In my area of the Adirondacks DEC's answer to a decline was to shorten the season, but on the WRONG END. DEC chooses to ignore trapper input and even their own St.Lawrence County study which showed no negative affects from a later season. Pennsylvania has it right with a December season.. It seems to me that DEC wants all seasons to run the same for their convenience without consideration of when is the best time to harvest our furbearers.