I went back and followed the tracks for a couple minutes, trying to puzzle it out. A mustelid, for sure, with the distinctive pattern and gait. But far too big for a weasel, too big for a mink as well. Not an otter. I know we don’t have martens here. Not a skunk (mephetide) either. What the heck? I followed the tracks, which seemed very fresh, to the narrow, iced-over channel over which I’d built a footbridge some years before. Then I caught the foul odor. Again, not a skunk, but very pungent in a different sort of way. I measured the tracks with a ball point pen. The forepaw 4 to 4 1/2” long. And then I realized what it had to be, though it doesn’t really belong here. A fisher.

Second largest of the mustelids, after the wolverine, the fisher is a fierce predator, the males growing up to 20 pounds. Preying on rabbits, squirrels, snowshoe hares, even porcupines, they are a creature mainly of the North Woods. But after finding one along a roadside several years ago, I had learned that they do sometimes follow the Mississippi River corridor farther south.

And now we have one here.

This makes the other congregation members nervous, as it should. Makes me nervous, too, when Koda goes out for his daily constitutional. But fishers are solitary wanderers, and have a huge range—up to 150 square miles. After searching I have found no den (females would be having kits about now) so I am thinking this one is a male and has probably moved along. But for now I am keeping a sharp eye, and I go out when Koda goes out.

But it is fun to know our little community has such a rare visitor, a real touch of the wild. From the Church O’ The Pines, where Kathy is recuperating, we wish all beings, especially the wild ones, Good Sabbath!

(Track photos by me, fisher photo Adirondack Almanac).