Finicky fisher-- no more!

When I moved east to Schoharie County almost 2 years ago, I had a mental bucket list of critters that I would like to encounter while living and going to school here. Although I lived in rural areas in Western, NY, there are several animals in lower density there, than are found here. Primarily, the fisher and the bobcat. Both animals, historically, ran rampant across the entire state. But, as the old story goes, over hunting/trapping, development, habitat destruction etc, drove these animals almost to extinction in New York. Here, just north of the Catskills, you have seasons to hunt/trap both the fisher and the bobcat. While some may not LIKE this, this means that biologists know the populations to be viable, and sturdy enough to withstand harvest. Sometimes it’s almost necessary, to make a population grow. Think of a rose-bush. You have to prune it, right? Then the following year it should come back bigger and bushier, with new growth. In the finger lakes, the numbers of fishers and bobcats are lower, but on the rise. Since I moved from there in 2012, the instances and stories I’ve heard about both bobcats AND fishers being spotted (with eyes and cameras) has increased steadily.

When I first moved here, I set up cameras in the fall of 2012, in my backyard. I also had some classmates set their cameras up too. Almost immediately, both of them snagged pics of a fisher, the same on in fact, minutes apart but on different cameras:

A fisher caught on camera trap, Schoharie, NY. Photo credits: Courtney Stein, Adam Rogers (respectively)

Fisher in Schoharie, NY

It took me over 2 months longer to FINALLY get a fisher on camera in my backyard, on Christmas morning! Merry Christmas to me, indeed! I don’t know why these large members of the weasel family were able to escape the ever-watchful eye of my camera traps, but it took 3.5 months of active camera-trapping to finally catch one. And what a picture, too! Well, soon this fisher (or perhaps more than one?) were regular visitors to the scraps I threw out in the woods in front of my camera. I also often use scent lures (nasty concoctions of unspeakable bits) to draw them in. I don’t want to say I got BORED of the fisher(s), but after a while, I like to see some variety. Or… I’d like to catch a glimpse of one myself. Right now, I live at the base of a north-facing slope. Night “falls” here about 2 hours earlier than elsewhere. It’s dark, and shady, and cold. Nice in the summer, depressing this time of year. This also means that I have significant amounts of snow still, and probably will til May! I can see from where I sit now, at my kitchen table, right up the hill. The stark snow gives a great background to track movements of critters. I’ve seen rabbits, squirrels, deer, and many birds up there. I’m still waiting on my fisher.

Several weeks ago, my buddy Tyler and I took a drive up to some local state land (see the first part of that adventure here: Neature is Neat) for a weekend reprieve from school work, and to get out and enjoy the outdoors. It was a balmy (35*F), sunny day. We drove as far up the unplowed, seasonal roads would take us. We saw tons of tracks, and other signs that despite the heavy snowfall, wildlife was still out and about.

Fisher track highway. Click to enlarge.

As we’re driving over snow-covered roads with snowbanks 4+ feet tall, admiring the hemlocks and pines, watching sun filter through the needles…it happened. My moment and a MAJOR bucket list check happened. A FISHER came out of the trees on the right, ran across the road, jumped up the snow bank where it perched for a moment to look at me, then took off to the left into the hemlocks. It all happened in about 1.5 seconds. Poor Tyler, I screamed and simultaneously slammed the car into park (while still moving forward) and leapt from (a still moving?) the car. Tyler was focused on…something else…at the very moment of my excitement, and once he figured out what I was screaming about, he also jumped out and took off into the woods in the direction of the fisher. I have NO idea what he was hoping for. A sighting? A run-in? To catch it? He went tearing through 2+ feet of snow, through a thick blow down. I stood on the snow bank looking at the tracks, and trying to calm myself. Did I really just see a fisher? Did I just see a squirrel and freak out? No. I was staring at FRESH fisher tracks that had been laid down about 10 seconds ago. For a snow tracker, it was ideal conditions. Crunchy, hard snow with a 1/4″ light dusting on top. PERFECT.

About 5 minutes later, Tyler came huffing, puffing, and swearing back in my direction. He missed it totally, and was really bummed out. He kept asking me “Why didn’t I see it? What was I even looking at?”…. Um, I don’t know.

While he had been gone, I got my camera out to snap a few pics of tracks.

A mish-mash of tracks, possibly from different animals or different events of travel.

Fisher hind right track I believe. The smallest toe (thumb) is on the inside for a fisher. Someone please interject if I’m incorrect!

Winter tracking is such a treat, and a look inside the lives of our wild neighbors. Without snow, a skilled tracker, or lucky novice will be able to find tracks. I’ve been out in the woods with people who are seeing things in the leaf litter that I’ve looked over before. But, in snow or mud, I’m your girl!

Tyler and I were so excited by this experience, that we returned the next day to this spot to hide camera traps. We took a risk, and left them on public lands. But, they’re tucked away in safety of the hemlocks, and are only staying up for 1 more week. We’re hoping for some great fisher pictures, but I also wouldn’t turn my nose up at a bobcat either!

Do good, little Bushnell.

Inundated by wildlife!

Collecting waterfowl food items for a project at

Rossman-Fly Pond 9/30/2013. Photo credit: Tyler Barriere

And, no I’m not literally inundated by wildlife, unfortunately. This semester has been my hardest yet. Upper level courses, lots of work, extracurriculurs, traveling, and my internship have all kept me very busy the past 9 weeks.

I’m currently enrolled in: Mammalogy, Wildlife Damages Management, Ecology and Management of Waterfowl, Chemistry, and Statistics. Chem and Stats are both 100 level courses, but foreign to me, so they might as well be upper-level work. The courses are great, faculty is great, it’s just the nature of the beast. Being an undergraduate requires time-consuming writing, reading, journaling, lab-writing, test-studying, and flashcard-making.

Getting ready for the Quiz Bowl competition

with the team from SUNY Cobleskill!

In addition to that, I try and make time to attend our college’s student chapter of The Wildlife Society. I have been really involved throughout my college career with TWS, and it’s been really rewarding. Sometimes, some of the best learning happens outside of the classroom. I’ve also participated in all kinds of events that have helped reinforces things I did learn in the classroom.

The most recent TWS event I was involved with, was that I was accepted to travel to, and present at the national conference held last week in Milwaukee, WI. My previous blog entry describes a bit of that trip. To make it brief though, I got to spend a week with professionals and students of all levels, talking about wildlife. Wildlife nerd HEAVEN! I even participated in the nerdiest thing of all: Wildlife Quiz Bowl. Colleges submit 1 team each to this “Bowl”, and answer trivia questions about wildlife, policy, history, etc…and compete. SUNY Cobleskill did NOT win, but we did make much farther than the previous year’s team!

THE "Wildlifers" mecca.

I sat in on many presentations about wildlife-related research happening around the world. Everything from river otters in the Finger Lakes, to gray wolf resoration in the Midwest, to the lack of wildlife collegiate-level education that’s available in Japan. It was awesome.
I also got to meet up with two fellow bloggers: “Trailblazer” and “xdhaas“, which was pretty neat as well.

The week ended with a phenomenal field trip, that perhaps only a true wildlife nerd or conservationist would appreciate. I will go address that in a subsequent blog entry though.

What else have I been up to?…

In my Mammalogy class, 3 of my classmates and I are going to attempt to live-trap a fisher, and with the assistance of our professor and with a professional DEC biologist, we’ll depoly a GPS collar on the critter.



A fisher visiting a bait set in Schoharie County.



Taxidermy mount of a fisher

modeling a GPS Lotek brand collar.

We’d like to put on a collar on the guy/gal at left, and track it’s movements. We’ve only gotten 1 picture, above, in the past month of prebaiting the traps. This means the traps are in the woods, locked open, which allow the animal to check them out. Then, when it’s time (hopefully next week), we’ll trigger the traps to close once an animal enters. This is all dependent on the wild animal of course.

While we were talking about our plans and logistics last week, we decided to try our collar on a receptive critter. Our taxidermied mount of a fisher. She didn’t seem to mind!

And, just so I’m clear- this isn’t “just for fun”. This takes the cooperation and involvement of our group members, our professor, the college holding a collection permit allowing us to live-trap, and DEC staff to assist us in the chemical immobilization, handling, and collaring of the actual animal. If we ever get to that point! Unfortunately, the fishers have been scarce all fall. And our project is due in less than a month.

I’ve been so busy this semester, that I haven’t written nearly as often as I like. I have so many things to write about, I will keep trying to get entries written when I find the time!

Camera trap catch-up

The past 2 weeks have been so totally insane out-of-control hectic, it aint even funny. Work, a death in the family, a trip to Massachusetts for a black bear field study I’m involved with, and FINALLY getting to go back to my home in Cobleskill after weeks away…one good thing to come out of all of that, is that I’ve left my camera trap alone and unbothered…

Since I haven’t shared any camera trap images lately, I think I’ll share the best of the past 2 weeks, and let the photos speak for themselves.

A woodchuck "selfie" - Latham, NY

Striped skunk

Woodchuck cleaning out the barn?

 

Eastern cottontail "selfie" - Latham, NY



Red fox - Latham, NY

American Crow "selfie"...in flight?! - Latham, NY

Red fox bringing home a meal? - Latham, NY

Gray squirrel and an American Crow - Latham, NY

 

Fisher - Cobleskill, NY

Virginia opossum - Cobleskill, NY

Two gray squirrels - Cobleskill, NY

White-tailed deer...young buck! - Cobleskill, NY

Family of 4 raccoons - Cobleskill, NY

American Crows - Cobleskill, NY

 

Eastern cottontail - Cobleskill, NY

Check these videos out...

I have 3 weeks left in my semester (WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO) so time is short. But I got a few cool videos on my camera trap a few weeks ago, and I figured I'd share them!

The camera is a Bushnell Trophy Cam HD, and this was taken in Schoharie, NY.

I used the following scent lure to see who I could get to respond to it (really was hoping for a bobcat):

 

Fisher

 

 

American Crows (wait til the end...they almost take out my camera!)

 

 

The elusive gray fox...I love these small Canids, and I'm happy to have gotten one in my backyard!

 

 

 Camera-trapping is so addictive! I've said it before, and anyone else who's a 'trapper I'm sure will agree!



A Bluebird Saturday

A Bluebird Saturday walk with Addie

As of Friday, I began my spring break!

I’m not going anywhere totally glamorous with surf, sand, and cocktails, but I traveled back to the Finger Lakes to spend the week at my parents house. When I left Cobleskill, it was dumping snow. I think we had 6″ by 10am from overnight, which made for annoying packing and treacherous travel. I eventually drove out of it, and the further West I came, the nicer the weather.

Yesterday morning it was a balmy 45 degrees, and I took my pup for a walk. It was a truly Bluebird Day. Clear blue skies, and the sun felt like a spring sun.

I don’t want to quite divulge yet what kind of fun things I’m doing this week, and trust me- they are FUN!, so I’ll share yet another different camera trap setup I came up with for the week I’m out of town. I left a Cuddeback Attack camera set up in my yard in Schoharie, and I’ll be checking it when I come back next weekend.

My last creative setup yielded some great pictures of a fisher climbing a tree, although the set was short lived (Fisher destroyed it)! I wanted to come up with another “hanging” something or other to lure in the crittters. I don’t like throwing scraps on the ground for a few reasons: the Crows immediately come and steal them all, and then linger. My batteries get worn down, and I end up with hundreds of pictures of them. Also, sometimes the Crows carry off bits and pieces of whatever I throw down, and drop it elsewhere. I’ve pulled chunks of stuff out of my puppy’s mouth, and I don’t like that. My roommate also uses cameras, and threw down cooked chicken bones. I’ve always been cautioned to not let my dog have cooked bones (they can splinter) and that holds true for wild animals as well. Ok, so I didn’t have any scraps to put out, so instead I used just straight scent lure.

Fisher food lures

Scent lure is either is used to LURE in an animal, imagine that, but does not provide a reward, as bait does. Scent lures have different bases. They can be a food lure- something that a target animal would eat. For example, often bear lures are sweet in nature, or black licorice smelling. There are hormone driven lures, like deer urine used during the rut season. And then there’s another type: a curiosity lure. I guess the term “curiosity” lure can be applied to the first two I mentioned, but this one is usually REALLY stinky. It’s often ground up glands from certain animals. Like beaver castor, for example, are ground up beaver castor glands. Trappers will often use this to scent their traps and beavers will come in to check it out and defend their territory.

Ok so I used fisher food lure this time. They were from two different companies, but both local to New York. These lures smell DISGUSTING, as they’re made up of some kind of meat base. Fishers are carnivores, and they almost, if not completely, rely on meat as a food source.

Here’s how I set it up:

Supplies used for this set: aluminum wire, cotton pads, an old film canister.

I took about a 3 foot length of wire, and wound it around the cotton pads.

Then I threaded the wire through the film canister, so I could pull the cotton up into it. This will protect the cotton and scent from the weather.

Before I pulled the cotton into the canister, I slathered it with the scent lures.

Here's my 'scent capsule' hung up in a tree.

I'm hoping that the motion of this set and the smell of it will lure in fisher and MAYBE even a bobcat.

And that’s it! I hope that this works. I like the idea of hanging stuff up off the ground. The scent can carry further and like I said, animals can’t carry it off easily.

1,355 pictures of.....

...pretty much nothing! If you're new to this blog, I'm referring to the previous entry A new camera trap set! in which I wrote was bored with how I have been recently setting up my camera traps. I took a few extra steps to try and lure in the fisher (Martes pennanti).

Although 98% of my pictures were duds, Fisher DID stop by and check out my set for a little bit.

Before I share those pictures though, I wanted to share this little story. Last night (February 26, 2013), I got home from being in class all afternoon, and took my dog out for a walk around the backyard. I live on about 8 acres, but most of that is a very steep wooded hill. It was exactly 6pm (I checked), and it was still a bit light out, or maybe it seemed that way with all of the snow on the ground. Because of the white snow, I could see a ways up into the woods up the hill, almost to my camera trap set. As I'm standing there waiting for the dog to do her business, my camera flashed. It's way up the hill, and just over a small landing that I think used to be a logging road, so I can't directly see it. But the dim lighting in the woods allowed me to see that flash. I froze...and stared into the woods, hoping to see a deer, fisher, bobcat, bear SOMETHING bounding through the snow. Nothing. The flash went off 6 times in all before I went in. I'll admit it- I got spooked haha. SOMETHING had to be up there, right? SOMETHING was setting off my camera, right? I could hardly wait to trudge up the hill today and check. Here's the last picture that was recorded on my camera.

 

Notice anything? No. Neither do I...except that the timestamp is over an HOUR before I noticed the flashes. This was the last picture recorded. Sigh. Cuddeback, you've done it again. I will say that when I checked the camera today, the battery level was at 10%. That's low. But what I don't understand is that the camera was still flashing, but not recording images. From what I understand, the flash mechanism is the more "costly" feature of the camera. It burns a lot of battery.

 

Anyway, I did get a few nice images of a fisher and an Eastern cottontail...just moments apart too.

 

The bag that held the delicious treats of raw chicken scraps and that was doused in Kishel's Weasel Food Scent Lure was tattered and empty.

There were no visible tracks (except red squirrel) because we got 3-4" of heavy, dense snow overnight.

The culprits could have been:

-Raccoon
-Opossum
-Gray fox
-Fisher

I of course was hoping for fisher, although pictures of a gray fox climbing a tree would have been pretty cool too!

 

 

Do you see the culprit up there?

 

That's the fisher-cat alright! Something was waving over the lens of this camera, although I don't know what. I didn't notice anything...and it's in the "perfect" spot, right over the spot where the fisher hung out.

 

 

The bag is not yet pulled up over the branch...seems the fisher was checking the situation out. And this fisher, or maybe I have more than one visiting, does NOT seem to be deterred by the flash whatsoever!

 

 

Here he is, going in for the "kill".

 

And now the bag is out of sight...and so is Fisher. And look who shows up: the Eastern cottontail. Perfect fisher food.

 

Peter Cottontail does not seem concerned that a blood thirsty, voracious carnivore is on the prowl...

 

Literally ONE minute later....Peter is gone (where??) and Fisher is back.

 

And this is my last picture of the fisher. No wonder these guys are considered "fur-bearing" animals. That coat looks so soft and warm. I would LOVE to handle one.

 

So, that's all for now! When I reset this set up, I will reposition my camera a bit so we're looking more directly at the tree. But, I think my effort was not wasted, even though I got 1,347 pictures of "nothing".

 

A new camera trap set!

Things have been slow for me lately. Stressful too. We’re at the 6 week mark of the semester. The newness of it is gone, and we’re having exams, projects are underway, and reading is piled up nightly. That’s why I’m blogging on a Friday night! Crazy college girl here!

It’s been so cold out lately too, that I had pulled my cameras in. It’s not good for the batteries when it’s below freezing. I think they really have to work to push out the flash and capture the images, so the batteries wear down more quickly.

This is the scent lure I used:

Kishel's Weasel Lure

Today though, the temps were above freezing, and seem to be predicted to stay in the mid-high 30′s for the next few days. It’s been awhile since my cameras have stunned me with anything fantastic, so I put a little work into setting up my Cuddeback, instead of just strapping it to a tree.

This set includes 3 pieces: the camera, the bait, and the lure.

The camera is a Cuddeback Attack flash camera. I’ve set it to take an image once disturbed by heat/motion every 5 seconds. I’m not always confident that this camera performs exactly how I want it to, but that’s another story.

The bait is a netted bag full of raw chicken scraps. Last week I bought boneless chicken breasts, and while I was packing them up to freeze, I trimmed off bits of fat and a few gristly bits. Nothing like that goes to waste in THIS house, so they went into the freezer until (today) I could figure out how to use them.

Bag of chicken scraps ready to be hung from a tree branch.

And to be clear about the difference of bait vs. a lure: a bait gives the animal a reward and will encourage it to return to the spot. For example, a pile of cracked corn for deer or turkeys. Scent lure is just an enticing smell of food OR of the species you’re trying to lure in. Often anal or scent glands are harvested from traditionally trapped animals, ground up, and then used for the next round. Beaver castor can sell for more than the actual pelt, FYI.

The lure in this case is the weasel food lure that is seen above. This Kishel’s scent boasts “Not only does our Weasel Lure capture the weasel’s most intense instinct, it actually creates the illusion of a fresh kill!” I can’t really describe what it smells like, other than gross. Weasels will actively hunt for fresh meat, but will scavenge carrion too.

My target critters that I hope to see are generally: carnivores. I wouldn’t mind getting pictures of red and gray foxes, coyote, any weasels, bobcat, or even black bear.     A fisher caught on camera trap in my backyard Schoharie, NY What I’m really specifically targeting though are fishers and bobcats.   There are specific ways to set a trap (whether it be a foot-hold or camera), to lure in specific animals.   Fishers are voracious eaters. They have a very high metabolism, so they must consume frequently, or at least large, high protein meals. So in the winter, when a meal is worth more to a wild animal, a food lure will hopefully work well to bring them in. Although, apparently I’ve had NO issues getting the fisher to visit my backyard!   Bobcats, or cats in general seem to respond to movement lures. I’ve read blogs and trapping forums that suggest hanging a big turkey feather or even a CD from a tree branch to lure the ‘cat in. If you’re a cat owner, you’ve probably played with them by dangling something in front of them, and they respond well. I don’t know why it is, but cats like things like that. So this bag of chicken bits is hung about 4-5 feet off the ground from a branch extending out about 3 feet from the trunk. So hopefully nothing will have the intuition to climb up the tree, reach over, and snag the bad. As a black bear would do if you hung your camp bag up. Notice the yellowish bait bag hanging from the tree. I found this nice little nook to tuck my camera away, I think it camouflages really well!   So I dribbled a little bit of the weasel lure on the bag, dipped a stick into the bottle and stuck that in the snow, and I was on my way. I’m going to try and avoid the area as much as possible, since each time I go up the hill, I’m depositing my scent, and likely my dog’s too. This MAY deter wildlife.   Cross your fingers for me!