Fishers were extirpated from West Virginia by the early 1900s and only returned through a mix of natural recolonization from Virginia and deliberate reintroduction efforts, so the state’s 34 records, more than half from casual iNaturalist sightings (31) rather than trapping data, track a genuinely recovering population rather than a historically stable one. NatureServe rates the state population S3, vulnerable, a cautious read that fits a species still reestablishing itself across the Allegheny highlands.
February alone accounts for 10 of the 34 records, nearly a third of the year’s total, the peak breeding season when fishers travel widely searching for mates and cross more open ground, making them easier to spot or track than during the rest of the year.
Full species profile
