Close encounters with fisher cats in South County / photo
4:53 PM Mon, Jun 22, 2009 | Permalink
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Projo.com photo by Pamela Reinsel Cotter A juvenile fisher cat hides in a North Kingstown tree Sunday, part of a litter of 3 with its mother that roamed the Quidnessett neighborhood.
Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management reports that generally fisher cats are only harmful to small mammals such as squirrels, moles and chipmunks, but now there's a report that a 6-year-old boy from Hopkinton was bitten by one Monday morning while waiting for a school bus. Without naming the family, Hopkinton police said a Karen Drive mother was walking her children to the bus stop at 8:02 a.m. Monday when she saw what looked at first like a cat near the road. Thinking it might be a fox, she later told the police, she turned the children around. As they walked away, the animal attacked her son, she said. She tried several times to kick it off, and when she succeeded, the animal "took an aggressive demeanor and appeared to be getting ready for a second attack," the police report said. As the mother tried to scare the animal by yelling at it, another child threw a backpack at it. The animal attacked the backpack, which allowed the group to reach safety. A neighbor managed to kick the animal and chase it across the street until it disappeared. Both adults described the animal as being 20 to 25 pounds, low to the ground, with light to dark brown fur and a bushy tail. The child was taken to Westerly Hospital with bite marks on his right leg. The police and DEM personnel searched the woods where the animal disappeared but were unsuccessful in finding it. Hopkinton's emergency management director Michael Octeau alerted the neighborhood that a possibly rabid animal was loose. The alert went out on the town's "reverse 911" system According to DEM Fish & Wildlife division biologist Charlie Brown, female fisher cats typically cover a range of about a square mile, while males cover more ground in their territories. Female fisher cats get to be about 5 to 6 pounds fully grown; the males can be up to 10 pounds. "By fall they will be adult size, ready to go off on their own," Brown said, adding that their life span is typically only about 7 or 8 years. Despite the fact that fisher cats were extrapated -- or locally extinct -- in Rhode Island from the time the first colonists appeared and cleared the lands of the woods they need to thrive -- they've been making a rebound in recent years and their numbers are quite healthy, Brown said. "They had been pushed (to living mostly) in the White Mountains (of New Hampshire), Maine or the Adirondacks," Brown said, but began to spread their territories back into Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Part of the same family of animals that includes weasels and minks, fisher cats typically are not harmful to people, but can be a threat to domestic cats and other small mammals. Brown said they can be seen in the daytime locally. Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated fisher cats do not harbor rabies. They do. -- With reports by staff writer Donita Naylor 
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I didn't realize how cute they are. He looks like a little black bear up in the tree. Too bad for the little boy though, I hope he's okay both physically and emotionally.
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Don't be fooled. These things are vicious. They will chase you and your pets right into your house. Cute? Not. There moth and teeth look like the alien right out of the movie Alien. One came to breakfast uninvited at my house in Smithfield. It wanted my cat not the cereal.
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If fisher cats only reach about 10 pounds, was that really a fisher cat that attacked the boy? Both adults describe it as 20 to 25 pounds?
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Fishers are *NOT* cats, they are members of the weasel family, as was indicated in the article and as I'm sure Charlie Brown from DEM must have told the author of this piece. Why then did this person repeatedly keep referring to them as "fisher cats"? Though this may be a nick-name for these animals, it is inaccurate and misleading. The author should have made this clear at some point in the article.
I also hope the little boy who was bitten is OK.
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The picture above does look like a cute little bear...but google other pics with it's teeth showing and the cuteness will quickly disappear.
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this picture is of a juvenile fisher and it does look very cute doesnt it? usually they adults are mean and ugly looking! they are vicious little devils though. they have such a blood curdling scream too. I live in Warwick and from time to time I will hear them in the woods crashing from treetop to treetop screaming as they go! I still get the spooks when i hear them.
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I think that IS a bear up the tree.
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Wow, now THAT'S real news -- wild animals in rural Hopkinton.
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I agree with James Gass. Everyone should stop referring to these animals as "fisher cats". Evidently it is a nickname unique to New England, and it is very misleading. Every resource that I have found refers to them as "fishers". I can't find any reference to where the "cat" part came from. Is this a Rhode Island thing, like calling a water fountain a "bubbla"?
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Yes, what's with the weight disparity? The witnesses say 20-25 pounds, the DEM says a max of 10 pounds? Was this actually a fisher cat?
That photo is totally cute.
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The misnomer "Fisher Cat" comes from the French term (fichet) for the pelt of a Polecat.
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They are definatly cute but have you heard their screeching? It's earsplitting - http://fishercatscreech.com
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