As turkey,grouse ect.ect hunters......

[growalot]

What are your thoughts on the rather large number of fisher spotted posts across the state....I know we've had them a few years...cams ,personal sightings then finding that dead one this spring. They are great hunters...and love eggs  to which all your flushing type birds and turkey are ground nesters, besides their ability to ambush turkey at nite on roost.....We use to have a wonderful Grouse population here and some wild pheasant...now ,the only grouse I ever see or hear are in the worst of the swamp and wild rose there...no pheasant anymore....Turkey have been coming back  but I think it's due to a raccoon reduction ....

Are there enough trappers to manage an ever increasing population?

Edited December 8, 2016 by growalot

[airedale]

Fishers are the very least of your worries when it comes to depleting upland bird populations. They are mostly big woods animals and localized to certain types of habitat and their population is relatively low. When it comes to predation Coons, Coyotes, Skunks, Fox, Possums and Raptors take a far bigger toll on upland birds and local waterfowl. 

Small game hunting for those animals and Trapping has fallen by the wayside in recent years. Posted land, low fur prices also have contributed to a pretty much zero predator control time. Today's modern farming practices and lack of suitable habitat are among other factors that have added to the problem.

Al

[Pygmy]

Fishers are like mink...Even in RELATIVELY high populations there aren't very many of them.

Think of them in terms of square miles per animal, rather than animals per square mile.

[wolc123]

I saw more grouse than ever up in the NW Adirondacks this fall (zone 6C).  I flushed about 10, while deer hunting, on my last walk down the ridge over the long Thanksgiving weekend.  The turkey population up there looks very good also.  We saw a big flock in a field near Ft. Drum, along rt 3, on the drive home and almost hit a couple when they crossed in front of us.  I did not see any signs of fisher, but my father in law saw a raccoon run under a cabin in the middle of the day.  That is a pretty good sign of distemper or rabies.   Maybe that is why the grouse and turkeys are on the upswing up there.

Back home, in WNY (zone 9F), the coon population is down from last year and I have never seen a fisher.   I trapped 7 around my corn plots so far this year while the last couple years, my neighbor has got more than 50.  I hear he has taken 8 coyotes so far this year, which should be good for the birds and the deer.  I don't think we have to worry too much about rabies here because there are still a few folks (like me) who like to trap in spite of low fur prices (I just feed the coons to the buzzards).   I still come out in the black because If I don't get rid of the coons, I have to put in a lot more corn to hold deer on my farm thru gun season and that gets pretty expensive.  Fortunately, coons are about the easiest furbearer there is to trap.  Boneless venison is coming in at less than $1.00 a pound for us so far this year, after subtracting all foodplot (mostly corn) input costs, thanks in large part to near complete eradication of the local coons.