Rare Sighting In Yosemite: Trail Camera Captures Adorable And Elusive Fisher
A wildlife camera captured an unusual sight in Yosemite National Park over the winter: a fisher.
The National Park Service said sightings of at least one of the animals in Yosemite since 2017 meant the little critter ― part of the weasel family ― had extended its range farther north than originally believed:
This winter, Yosemite biologists confirmed that at least one fisher continues to live in forested habitat north of the Merced River. This elusive member of the weasel family was first spotted in the area in 2017, extending their range further north than previously thought. pic.twitter.com/G0Jsqe870s
— Yosemite National Park (@YosemiteNPS) February 23, 2020
Park officials said their cameras picked up four images of a fisher, including at least one in color:
Along with the images, the park found two scat samples. The images, scat, evidence from scent-detecting dogs and genetic analysis pointed to between one and six individual fishers in the area.
“Yosemite comprises the northern extent of the southern Sierra Nevada fisher population and these detections extend their range farther north into Yosemite than previously thought,” a park news release noted. “The fisher is a very rare and secretive member of the weasel family, and its population in the southern Sierra is proposed for federal listing.”
This winter’s sightings followed one north of the Merced in 2017, the first in that area in almost a century:
Happy World Wildlife Day!!
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Biologists were thrilled when, last fall, this wildlife camera footage revealed the first documented sighting of a Pacific fisher north of the Merced River in Yosemite in nearly 100 years.#WorldWildlifeDay pic.twitter.com/VpCAPfiOat— Yosemite National Park (@YosemiteNPS) March 4, 2018
Fishers and several other related animals were hunted nearly to extinction in the 1800s by trappers seeking to sell their pelts, the National Park Service said.
“California banned trapping of fishers in the 1940s but their numbers have continued to decline because of habitat loss from logging, development and severe forest fires,” the agency website stated.
Wildlife officials have been trying for several years to bring fishers back to the area, releasing four kits into Yosemite in 2015. However, as the animals are shy and elusive, sightings were limited, which was why biologists found the images snapped on wildlife cameras this winter to be so encouraging.
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.