Eighteen records since 2000 make the fisher one of Washington’s least documented mammals, but the number hides a comeback. Fishers are native to the state, were trapped out by the mid-twentieth century, and have been returned in recent decades, which is why today’s records cluster around Mount Rainier National Park and the Olympic Peninsula, with Pierce and Clallam counties leading.
A hunter of deep timber
The fisher is a large member of the weasel family built for mature forest, agile enough to run down squirrels in the canopy and famous as one of the few predators that regularly kills porcupines. It needs big trees with cavities for denning and a tangle of downed wood for hunting cover. Washington’s records, from Mount Rainier National Park to the Daniel J. Evans Wilderness and Olympic National Park, sit in exactly that kind of country.
Active in every season
Fishers do not hibernate, and they are solitary and wide-ranging, so an individual may cross a given ridge only a few times a year. Washington’s records scatter across the calendar without a strong peak, matching an animal that hunts all winter and raises its kits in tree dens in early spring.
Status in Washington
NatureServe ranks the fisher S1, Critically Imperiled, in Washington, though the species is G5 globally and native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
