OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - Grainy trail-camera images offer the first proof that fishers reintroduced in the South Cascades are reproducing.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife says the pictures show a young female fisher in Gifford Pinchot National Forest coming down her den tree headfirst, carrying a large kit.
The mother was released into the forest early last year as part of an effort to reintroduce the rare carnivores, a housecat-sized member of the weasel family. Sixty-nine of the animals have been released so far, and biologists believe they’re doing pretty well.
Ninety fishers were released in Olympic National Park from 2008 to 2010, and evidence shows that they’ve successfully spread across the peninsula and are reproducing.
Fishers are native to Washington but were wiped out by the middle of last century through over-trapping and habitat loss.
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