Fisher Team
Fisher Team
What We're Working on Now
Over the last 3 months the Fisher Team has been very busy keeping track of adult females during our 4th full denning season. This critical period of the year for fishers is now drawing to a close, after which the young kits will begin trailing their mothers through the forest. This year we were successful in identifying 28 den trees that were used by 11 different adult females. Last year we identified/verified a total 18 den trees used by 9 different adult females.
In keeping with the alarming pattern we’ve observed for all previous denning seasons, 3 different adult females were killed by predators this spring. Two of those were killed when we were attempting to locate their natal den trees in early April after several snowstorms, whereas a 3rd (F46) was killed in late May. We did attempt to rescue the 2 orphaned fisher kits left behind by F46, but the young fishers had already succumbed to dehydration/starvation down inside a partially hollow black oak den tree.
Although the deaths of 3 denning female fishers is a definite negative for the population, there was good news in that one of the orphaned female fisher kits from spring 2010 (“Little Orphan Annie,” or F39) is denning this year and has produced kits of her own!
The Fisher Team hosted a field trip on May 1 focused on fisher denning behaviors and habitat use. Over 45 agency, local landowners, or environmental group representatives attended and the event was very well received.
The Fisher Team will keep quite busy during the summer season measuring habitat features around the spring 2012 den trees, surveying for fisher activities around SPLATS, working on data analyses/manuscripts, and keeping track of the current 36 radiocollared fishers roaming the study area.
Updates
THIS MONTH
THIS YEAR
- News about the Fisher Team
- Green Blog: Perils of illegal marijuana crops
- March 2013 update on the SNAMP Fisher Team
- March 2013 update on the SNAMP Fisher Team - Full Report
- We've added two new Science Briefs from the Fisher Team
- SNAMP PUB #17: Anticoagulant Rodenticides on our Public and Community Lands: Spatial Distribution of Exposure and Poisoning of a Rare Forest Carnivore
- SNAMP PUB #10: Canine distemper in an isolated population of fishers (Martes pennanti) from California.
- Fisher Presentation at Yosemite Area Audubon Society
- Sierra Star: Audubon program to feature Pacific fisher research
- Fisher Team update, Feb 2013
- We've added two new Science Briefs: Fisher and Biomass related
THE PAST
- Update on the Fisher Sock Drive!
- Owl Team response to questions from Steve Brink, 10/4/2012
- Questions for SNAMP Owl Team
- Owl team response to questions from Steve Brink
- New updates from the Fisher team
- Forest Research and Outreach Blog on Current Status of SNAMP
- SNAMP status and funding update
- Thanks for the socks!
- Green Blog on Socks Drive for Fisher Research
- Dr. Reginald Barrett resigns from SNAMP
- Wildlife Information Repositories
- Fisher Monitoring Season
- Fisher Den Video
- Fisher den found in Yosemite
- Anticoagulant Rodenticides and Fishers
- Fall 2010 Newsletter: Vol 4. No. 2 - Fisher Team
- Fisher Kit Blog
- UC researchers rescue 5 orphan fisher kits
- Fisher Camera Trap Grids, as of 7-24-08
- Fire update (7-16-08)
Discussion
The following questions have been submitted by Steve Brink in response to the SNAMP Owl team's IT meeting in ...
The following response is from the SNAMP Owl team to questions submitted by Steve Brink after the IT meeting of ...
Description
The Fisher Team is determining the limiting factors for the Pacific Fisher (Martes pennanti) population through the life of the SNAMP project in the southern site.
Researchers
Primary Investigators
John Battles
Dr. Battles studies how and why forests change. Specifically, he focuses on the nonequilibrium determinants of forest composition, structure and function.
Rick Sweitzer
Rick A. Sweitzer is Project Leader for the SNAMP Fisher Study. His research focus is applied aspects of wildlife conservation and population ecology of mammals with emphases in predator-prey systems, behavioral ecology, and the ecological effects of introduced species on native ecosystems.
Staffer
Gary Roller
Gary has over 10 years’ experience in natural resource management and has held positions as a forester and a research associate at the University of California Berkeley Wildland Fire Science Laboratory and the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station. Gary received both his MS in forestry science and BS in forestry and natural resource management from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. His research interests focus on fire behavior modeling and applied forest ecology, and he is co-author of several publications in these disciplines. Gary has served as project manager for numerous interdisciplinary research projects and is looking forward to bringing his expertise back to the SNAMP project.
The following are questions and responses regarding the CA spotted owl: Q1:Since 1993, the owl team stated that they ...