Saturday, September 1, 2018

Rare glimpse of a camera-shy critter

My first photo of a fisher. I have only seen one other
I have had at least one trail camera set up in the bush behind our home here in Nolalu for the past 15 or so years. Sometimes I have had three cameras on the go. I love getting wildlife photographs and it is a hoot checking out my camera cards every day.
I also had an ulterior motive: it seems everyone in the townships south and west of Thunder Bay has seen a cougar, except for me. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry maintains there are no cougars in these parts. They point to a lack of physical evidence -- no photos, no scat, no dead animals -- just eye-witness accounts. As police officers will tell you anywhere, eye witnesses often see what they want to see. Well, I was determined to prove the authorities wrong by getting trail camera photos of the elusive felines.
Now, 15 years later (it might actually be 20) here are my results. I have about 10,000 photos of whitetail deer of which 95 per cent are does and fawns. The next-most photographed animals are timber wolves at a few hundred photos. I have a few dozen photos of red foxes and a few of marten, porcupines and skunks. I have one trail camera photo of a lynx (although I have many more taken with a standard camera through the window of the house.)
Today I got my first photo of a fisher. I saw one other from the house a few years ago.
I have zero photos of cougars.
Do cougars exist here? Well, I have to admit there just is no physical evidence, at least on our land which is crawling with the cougars' favourite food -- deer.
But then, it took me all this time to get the fisher photo and they are known to be common in this area. Also I have no moose photos either and yet tracks tell me they still cross the land here at least once a year.

2 comments:

joe overman said...

I saw one about 40 years ago along Trout Bay

Dan Baughman said...

I just saw my second fisher. This one was right on a trail here in Nolalu. His black fur was longer than the one in the photo.

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