The fall stuns the porcupine, allowing the fisher to access the unprotected underside. Then, it will make a head-first descent down the tree with the help of semi-retractable claws and feet that can turn nearly 180 degrees. It will chase a porcupine up a tree until it can go no further and falls. The prickly defenses of the porcupine protect it against almost all predators except the fisher, who has developed a special way of hunting its prey. From a wildlife conservation blog in New Jersey, where similar efforts are underway way to restore the population: Check out how they came up with a way to hunt porcupines, something almost no other predator has figured out. "Because fisher are secretive predators and are rarely observed in the wild, seeing a fisher in Pennsylvania's forests heightens the wilderness experience sought by outdoor enthusiasts." "Fisher are a carnivore of great interest to naturalists and a variety of outdoor enthusiasts," the report reads. Here's a video of a fisher being released in a Pennsylvania forest to help grow numbers for last year's hunting season. Reported fisher observations also rose from 60 in 1997 to 481 by 2007. The Game Commission's Fisher Management Plan notes that estimated fisher captures rose from about 56 in 1999-2000 to about 983 by 2007-2008. Their numbers have improved significantly in the two decades since. In the mid-to-late 1990s, the Pennsylvania Game Commission began releasing fishers at six wooded locations in northern Pennsylvania. They are native to Canada and once thrived throughout the forests of the Great Lakes, the Rockies and the Appalachian mountain chain, but deforestation over the past two centuries drove them nearly to extinction in the United States. Rare beaked whale washes up along Jersey ShoreĪn adult male fisher can reach 4 feet in length from head to tail and typically weighs between 9-12 pounds, though they can grow to double that size.Spurred by civilization, 'coywolves' rapidly spread in Northeast U.S.Delco is one of few remaining homes for newly endangered bee species.They feast primarily on small rodents, but they're capable of taking down porcupines, foxes and will even eat each other, a wildlife biologist for the Pennsylvania Game Commission told the newspaper. The animal's name comes from the French word "fichet ," a North American peer of the European polecat. These guys are fierce and indiscriminate in their diet, which ironically does not include fish.