Threatened and Endangered Species - Recovery Plans Date
Published: December 2006 Number of Pages: 74 Author(s): Gerald
E. Hayes and Jeffrey C. Lewis The fisher is a large, stocky dark
brown member of the weasel family. It has a long bushy tail,
short, rounded ears, short legs, and a low-to-the-ground
appearance. Historically, fishers were widely distributed in
Washington in dense, mesic forests at low to mid-elevations. The
geographic distribution of trapping reports and collected
specimens confirms that fishers occurred throughout the
Cascades, Olympic Peninsula, and parts of southwestern and
northeastern Washington, although it does not appear that they
were as abundant in Washington as in other parts of their range.
Fishers occur only in North America, and between the late 1800s
and early 1900s populations were nearly extirpated over much of
their former range in the United States and eastern Canada. The
two most significant causes of the fisher’s decline were over-
trapping and loss and fragmentation of lo