Fisher cats and polecats
You can tell someone is a New Englander if they mention the “fisher cat.” Everywhere else they are simply “fishers.” Although they resemble cats somewhat, these sleek representatives of the weasel family are of course not cats at all, nor do they go fishing. The name comes from the first colonists, who thought they resembled their Old World “polecat,” Mustela putorius, which means “the smelly weasel” because of its disgusting stench. It’s a good thing this species wasn’t imported into the New World, because we already had its aromatic second cousin, the skunk, to entertain us. In fact, in some parts of the South, “polecat” is used for the skunk, while on the prairies, a “polecat” is M. putorius’s first cousin, the black-footed ferret.
The European polecat was also called a “fitchew,” “fitchet,” or “fitch” before 1800 and that’s where the name “fisher” came from — but it’s an insult to the fisher cat, who by all reports keeps its odors in check. One commentator from 1911 even went so far as to say they have a “pleasant, musky smell” like other weasels, and a musk enthusiast on YouTube went so far as to describe her pet ferret’s glandular emanations as her “happy smell.” Perhaps the world at large could benefit if someone figured out how to get this happiness into a spray bottle and replace our current musky colognes (originally from a deer), which are marketed as “heady and primal aphrodisiacs.”
For fans of binomial nomenclature there’s a newsflash on the fisher cat: It was formerly classified in the genus Martes along with other weasels, but recent DNA evidence shows it should have its own genus, Pekania, from the French-Canadian word for fisher: “pékan.” That’s what the Abenaki called it when the colonists first arrived in southern Quebec. In northern Quebec and Ontario on the other hand, the Cree called it an “ochek” which the English settlers borrowed as “wejack,” commonly used in the 19th century until it eventually died out. However, an “ochek” descendant lives on in the form “woodchuck.” Those early colonists were really confused because, yes, fisher cats and woodchucks both have brown fur, but otherwise, what a difference.
Fisher cats are rarely seen, but every cat owner lives in fear that their pets may fall prey to them. Not only are they quick and agile, but the cat’s usual defense of climbing a tree is useless since a fisher cat can scurry up the trunk as fast as a squirrel. A video of a fox chasing a fisher made me realize that our poor cat would have no chance of out-climbing one who was really intent on getting a meal.
But the good news is, they don’t eat that many cats, according to a study of scat and stomach contents. Their favorite dinner is porcupine, which may seem sad for those little waddlers, but they can do a lot of harm. When fishers were hunted to extinction in Vermont at the end of the 19th century, the porcupine population skyrocketed and because they decimate pine trees, the timber industry suffered severely. When fisher cats were reintroduced in the 1950s, everything balanced out again. Perhaps the most amazing thing about this story is that fisher cats have figured out how to penetrate the porcupine’s formidable defenses.
There are other fisher misunderstandings. When I first moved into our house one summer after dark, I heard what I thought was a woman screaming in the woods. I went outside to hear better, and my next-door neighbor also came out, saying, “Nothing to worry about — it’s just a fisher cat.” But it wasn’t. It’s a common misperception that fisher cats scream, but actually, they don’t make much of a noise at all. What we heard was a fox, probably a vixen, according to several nature sites.
If you want to see a fisher cat, good luck. They’re very shy. But you can find at least nine of them at a time up at Delta Stadium in Manchester. It was a bold move to name a team after a weasel, but the fisher cat has a reputation for ferocity, so for an athletic skirmish is certainly preferable to any of those bird teams, including its parent, the Blue Jays.
Go see them — the season has started.
Dale Coye is a member of the American Dialect Society. He has taught English and the humanities at several universities and worked in area theaters as a dialect coach and director. He grew up on a dairy farm in central New York and now lives in Wilton.
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