Press

ALBANY, NY – As fishers become more numerous throughout the Northeast, including suburban areas, New York State Museum biologists have developed a technique to count the animals using their unique fingerprints.

Fingerprints left behind at special tracking-boxes allow field biologists to identify which individual fisher had come in for the bait and, therefore, count the exact number of animals using an area.

State Museum scientists teamed with fingerprint experts at the New York State Department of Criminal Justice (DCJS) to develop this method, which is published in the May issue of the Journal of Wildlife Management. Using footprints to count fishers is a simple, inexpensive method compared to alternatives such as DNA fingerprinting

Fisher prints differ from those in humans because they are made up of patterns of dots rather than ridges, so standard criminology software did not work. "We tried submitting fisher prints to the state's fingerprint database but it didn't pair up the prints well" says Richard Higgins, retired chief of the DCJS Bureau of Criminal Identification. "But looking at them side-by-side it was obvious when you had a match."

Fishers, a member of the weasel family, are the only Carnivore known to have fingerprints, which are also known from primates and koalas. Other species may also have unique patterns in their tracks that would help in counting their numbers in the wild.

"The few porcupine and opossum tracks we got had incredible patterns and will probably turn out to be unique with more study." says Dr. Roland Kays, curator of mammals at the State Museum, who co-authored the Journal article, along with Higgins and others.

Museum scientists surveyed fishers from 2000-2002 as part of a carnivore survey across 54 sites in the Adirondack region of Northern New York. Fishers were the second most commonly detected carnivore species, behind coyotes.

"Our study suggests fisher populations are healthy throughout most of Northern New York," said
Kays. "Fisher populations are rising in most of the Northeastern United States, showing that wildlife will

reclaim their turf if forests are allowed to recover."

Fishers were nearly driven to extinction in the state by deforestation and over-trapping before receiving protection in the 1930s. This led to a slow recovery and limited trapping was permitted again in the 1970s. Their recent population boom appears to have begun in the 1990s

Fishers spread south out of the Adirondacks and Vermont and into the Hudson Valley. They are also spreading westward, with today’s leading edge around Syracuse. Fishers were first recorded in the suburbs of Albany and Boston in the last six years.

This past February a Fisher made its presence known near Schenectady when it bit a woman as she was taking out her trash in Glenville. It also attempted to attack a neighbor and his dog the day before. The fisher was later killed and tested positive for rabies. It was wearing a radio collar placed by State Museum scientists in 2002 when it was captured in the Albany Pine Bush.

Fishers are normally afraid of humans and rarely attack. They can contract rabies from raccoons, the most common carriers of rabies in the state, although this happens very rarely. Fishers eat mostly rabbits and other small mammals and are one of the only predators to regularly hunt porcupines.

As the State Museum’s curator of mammals, Kays studies carnivores in Albany’s Pine Bush and the Adirondacks. An Albany resident, Kays received his undergraduate degree in biology at Cornell University before earning his doctorate in zoology at the University of Tennessee.

The other co-authors of the Journal study are Mike Tymeson, DCJS; Carl J. Herzog, state Department of Environmental Conservation in Albany; Dr. Justina C. Ray, Wildlife Conservation Society in Toronto, Canada; Dr. Matthew E. Gompper, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences at the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO and Dr. William J. Zielinski United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station, Redwood Sciences Laboratory in Arcata, CA.

The New York State Museum is a program of the New York State Education Department, the University of the State of New York and the Office of Cultural Education. Started in 1836, the Museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the United States. Located on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free. Further information about programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

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