PGC Seeks Comment on Fisher Plan

The Pennsylvania Game Commission is seeking public input on a draft fisher management plan, which can be reviewed on the agency's web site. "We are seeking public comment on the draft fisher management plan to ensure the resulting final management plan considers the thoughts and concerns of Pennsylvanians about this species," said Calvin W. DuBrock, Game Commission Bureau of Wildlife Management director. "As written, the plan is science-based, progressive and promotes responsible management. We're interested in hearing from Pennsylvanians who would like to offer comments, and to see if we've missed something or if they share our management vision for the future." Pennsylvania's fisher reintroduction got started back in 1994, when 22 fishers were released on the Sproul State Forest in Centre and Clinton counties. Overall, 190 fishers were released in Pennsylvania as part of a reintroduction partnered by the Pennsylvania Game Commission, Frostburg State University and Pennsylvania State University. The recovery effort followed about eight decades of fisher-less forests in Penn's Woods. The furbearers, one of the largest members of the weasel family, disappeared in the state in the late 1800s and early 1900s as a result of deforestation and unregulated trapping. Since the fisher reintroduction program, which ran from 1994 to 1998, fishers have made great progress expanding their range from release sites in the Quehanna Wild Area, Allegheny National Forest, Pine Creek Valley and the Pocono Mountains. Fishers also have been expanding their range northward from the Mason-Dixon line deeper and deeper into the Alleghenies and the state's Ridge and Valley province since the 1980s.