No one really knows how this strange mammal got its name. It has a few names that it is called by, such as, Fisher Marten, Fisher Cat, Pennant's Marten Cat, tha-cho (Big Marten), Black Cat, and Pekan. According to one story, the fisher got its name from the pioneers, who used fish to bait traps. The fish were being stolen by a dark-colored animal, which they named "fisher". (Pringle, 2)

The fisher is a member of the weasel family, Mustelidae, in the order Carnivore. It is classified as Martes pennanti. It has dark brown, glossy fur, which gets white tipped as the fisher gets older. The female's hair is darker than the male's. Some fishers have a frost cast around the head and shoulders, or a white patch of hair on the chest. They have long, slender, weasel like bodies. The adult fisher is usually 20 to 25 in

The fisher breeds during the months of March and April. After mating, the female retains the embryos in her body for 9 to 10 months before they become implanted. The actual development lasts for about one to two months. It has one litter per year. The litter can have from 1 to 5 babies, but the average is 2 to 3 per litter. The babies, called kits, are born in late winter or early spring. The females raise their kits in dens in hollow trees or piles of branches. By the summer the kits can hunt and are nearly ready to live on there own.

When the Europeans first landed in North America, fishers were present from coast to coast. There is evidence that they were here even before prehistoric times. During the 19th century, people started settling the fisher's habitat. The hemlock forests that they lived in were cut down to make way for farms, and the number of fishers started to decrease. In 1837, only two fishers were known to be living in Ashtabula County, Ohio. By 1850, fishers had been extirpated from Ohio and many other states. (Fisher, http://www. ohiokids .org/ ohc/nature /animals/mammals/fisher.html) Logging, in the 20th century, diminished their habitat even further. The fishers then moved into undisturbed mixed forests in Canada and Alaska.

The fisher has now spread back into much of its old territory. After being introduced to Connecticut about a dozen years ago, they, now, number in the hundreds. ("Connecticut's population of elusive fishers on the rise" 14) According to the Department of Envir

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)