NEW YORK (AP) — A mysterious long-haired critter that’s been sighted on the streets of a Bronx neighborhood for several months has a name.
It’s a member of the weasel family called a fisher or fisher cat.
Zoologist Roland Kays of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences tells WCBS-TV (http://cbsloc.al/1mhrXe2 ) that the short-legged, furry-tailed creature may have come down the river.
New Yorkers should be thrilled. Turns out the fisher preys on rats and squirrels but is not a threat to humans.
Fishers were found in Manhattan when the island was first settled. The fur trade pushed them north and into the Adirondacks.
Fisher-trapping was banned in the 1930s. Kays says today the fisher population is booming in the Northeast and a trapping season has been reinstated.
