I've lived in Minnesota for 50+ years and have seen the damage Porcupines can do to trees. I also have 80 acres in east central MN and did have to control the porcupine population myself. That's why I was glad to see them move into my area a few years ago. End result porcupine damage and sightings dropped off after that. I'd much rather have Fishers controlling them than having to do it myself.
I read many years ago, that the reason why the Fisher was protected in certain areas, was because it is the only natural enemy of a porcupine. The article I was reading described how quickly a Fisher ran 20' up a tree, swatted a porcupine off a branch and ran down so quickly he was able to get at the unprotected Porcupine stomach before he could eight itself.
It's one thing to show video of them, but another to have knowledge of them. Your observation proves climbing a tree is no guarantee contrary to what is implied. Also "quill pigs" don't eat evergreens!!
I was lucky enough to see a fisher run up a tree and catch a grey squirrel once while bow hunting. They are that fast and by up I mean around 40+ ft. I couldn't believe it's speed and agility. It had that squirrel in around ten seconds and that was up, down and gone in that time. It also spotted me in full camo 20ft up in a tree a few days later 50 yards out at a steady run and nose down like they always are and only hesitated for a just a second or two with a memorable stare down before it fled. Amazing creatures but they will definitely go homicidal maniac on anything and everything they can in the woods sometimes almost cleaning it out completely.
Fishers are cutest. A fisher came within 10 feet of me in a meadow swale in the Siskiyous before I had to speak out and scare him off. He was even more well-muscled than the one in this video. I was afraid if I surprised him any closer, he might try to bite me. He looked me right in the eyes with a very expressive utterly mortified face. It was so cute I wanted to kiss his face.
I have come across a fisher kill zone while hunting snowshoe hare. There was a half dozen porcupine carcasses in a small area. Pretty interesting find.
Reposting this from Twitter: Something weird I have been wondering about: At my home in eastern Ontario, we have a lot of both porcupines and fishers. But it wasn't always that way. When I was kid there were lots of porcupines but no fishers. Then fishers recolonized eastern Ontario starting in the 90s and at some point I stopped seeing porcupines. They were gone and I supposed that maybe their natural density in the presence of fishers was just low. But now we have lots of both and I think that porcupines must somehow learn defense strategies and/or tactics. I would love to know, what did they change to avoid being predated and how is that behaviour learned and transmitted. For the last few years I've had a porcupine living under my porch. It killed an apple tree and has my front yard White Spruce looking pretty sparse but I it usually makes these long nightly treks across a field to the woods. Another nearby porcupine has been absolutely vandalizing tamaracks; it girdles them about 2/3 of the way up the trunk and then moves on to the next tree. I'm less sanguine about that one and am rooting for the fishers a bit.
interesting. i doubt these creatures can learn new strategies as 99% of what they’re doing is innate instinct. but i don’t know, maybe they’re smart like pigs. folks can put old stove pipe around favourite tree trunk.
Very cool. We have several trail cams at a porcupine den in Colorado. No fishers here but lots of traffic near and in that den. I have several videos on my website. Love this one here. Thank you so much.
In Northern California I observed a Fisher that stretched across a standard logging road that was at least 6 foot wide . It was equally that long , and moved like a slinky . Had a younger one come to my cabin that had no fear of my cat , dog , or me . Literally came inside my space and created quite the fiasco including a flying squirrel . I was momentarily in a hilarious cartoon which was serious at the same time . Interesting moment at 3in the morning .
i’m too lazy to read thru all the comments to see if this has been discussed. i’d be surprised if it wasn’t. what i’m refer to is the suggestion that porcupines are safe from fishers once in a tree. a porky defends itself by keeping its backside facing the predator. and it’s vulnerable face away from it. a porky isn’t a fast animal (except the speed with which it can whip its tail). which i guess is why they practice spinning around as captured on your excellent video. when on a small branch, or on the trunk of the tree i’d presume they have an even slower spin ability than when on the ground. a fisher is incredibly agile. i have never witnessed this but i’m just surmising. i happen to live in an oddball area where you see a porcupine almost every time i go snowshoeing. i’ve seen 2 kill sites so far (in both cases juveniles) but couldn’t piece together from the tracks how it went down or even what the predator was. anyway,if a fisher got a porky out on a limb and got on the face side of it i’m guessing it would not go well for the porky. great vid, hope more camera footage will be forthcoming. oh but here’s a complaint: the title of your vid is purposely misleading. please don’t.
Do the Fishers have good aboreal skills like the Martens ? Must be harder for the Porcupine to do the defensive spin up in the tree, If I was the Fisher id wait up the tree ! Love the vid keep em coming
Thanks, yeah the fishers are good climbers but I think the porcs just keep their rear end facing them, but who knows, maybe we need to get some cameras up in the trees!
Bears, Bobcats, and mountain lions will also attempt to flip a porcupine over to get at the unprotected underbelly....but much more rarely compared to the fisher.
Fish it pork it pin it stick it spin it eat it lick it drink it slap it poke it catch it trap it tree it chase it charge it run it laugh it love it feel it hear it lust it forget it ! Call it forget it just don't pay it
I met up with a porcupine on a cart road once he went right past me and I walked off the trail. He's like get out of my way my legs are only 6inches long so you step off the trail human.
The fisher was re- introduced in Michigan's Upper Peninsula several years ago to help control porcupines. They did a great job with the porcupines, you never even see a road kill porky anymore. The problem is, the porcupines are way down in numbers but the fishers are still here. The fishers are destroying the snowshoe hare population now. There is really no legal way to control the fisher population. The trapping season lasts for less than 2 weeks a year and the fisher limit is one. Legal methods for controlling porcupines by humans are numerous. There is no closed season and no bag limit on porcupines. Re-introducing predators in an area with human population is not the answer to control anything. WE are now the predators. Rather than introduce menaces like fishers and martin, just put a notice in the hunting rule book encouraging people to kill animals the DNR wants to reduce in population. Heck, give it a slogan. "Save a tree, shoot a porcupine". If you are a trapper, please come to the UP in December and get some martin and fisher. Even better, bring a bus load of Boy Scouts to trap them with you.
There is footage of a fisher killing a porcupine on a Canadian site. The fisher first got above the porcupine in the tree and forced it down. It then repeatedly bit the porcupine on the nose, rapidly moving around as the prey span around in defence. The porcupine eventually tired and was flipped over by the fisher. I think it was a government site but I can no longer find it.
I never thought I'd see porcupine porn! Thanks for sharing this, I live where there are pocupines and fisher cats. I have found porcupine skin laid out, quills facing down and all the meat/bones fat gone, bones spread over the area. Is there any animal the fisher won't eat?
@@wild.animals Thanks for confirming what I saw was not unique. Thank you for this video. When I found the first porcupine skin I was literally afraid. I could not imagine what could have done that never having heard about fishers.
From what I understand, Fishers are not native to North America and were introduced to control Porcupines. "Correct me if I'm right and correct me if I'm wrong"
I believe that fishers are native to North America. What happened was that in the early 1900s, the authorities in the Great Lakes area found that trees were being wiped out due to a large number of porcupines, because the fishers had been overtrapped. The authorities then reintroduced the fisher to places where they were needed .
I live in pa I was tought the fisher bites the nose of the porky and a porky has evolved to protect its nose by sleeping with its nose up a tree with it pointing at the terminal not towards the trunk as a biologist the only meat a human can eat raw is a porky also the porky is the hunters friend it is easy to kill because it protects its nose what college did you attend the animal world is not kind research my comments if I'm full of it shame on me I'm going to eat the next one and as a trapper I get 20 dollars a once for quills over 6 inch which make the most beautiful boxes in Canada lot more info degreed biologist just saying
@wc and @Irish Kelly, actually, you are both wrong, Mustelidae is now regarded as polyphyletic, the skunks, stink badgers, badgers, otters, zorillas, muishund, shulang, huro, grisons, wolverine, tayra, martens, and fisher are not classified under Mustelidae anymore, they are all relocated to four separate families, the skunks and stink badgers now both constitute the family Mephitidae, badgers are a monophyletic group and constitute the family Melidae, otters are reranked as a full family (Lutridae), and the zorillas, muishund, shulang, huro, grisons, wolverine, tayra, martens, and fisher all constitute the family Ictonychidae, leaving Mustelidae to be restricted to only the weasels, ferrets, and minks.
I've lived in Minnesota for 50+ years and have seen the damage Porcupines can do to trees. I also have 80 acres in east central MN and did have to control the porcupine population myself. That's why I was glad to see them move into my area a few years ago. End result porcupine damage and sightings dropped off after that. I'd much rather have Fishers controlling them than having to do it myself.
Fishers are over trapped
people do the most damage to trees and everything else on this planet!
@@dr.jones.3832
You are right👍
His morning snowball!!
This was so cool to watch! Thank you for sharing!
I read many years ago, that the reason why the Fisher was protected in certain areas, was because it is the only natural enemy of a porcupine. The article I was reading described how quickly a Fisher ran 20' up a tree, swatted a porcupine off a branch and ran down so quickly he was able to get at the unprotected Porcupine stomach before he could eight itself.
It's one thing to show video of them, but another to have knowledge of them. Your observation proves climbing a tree is no guarantee contrary to what is implied. Also "quill pigs" don't eat evergreens!!
Henry the eight
I was lucky enough to see a fisher run up a tree and catch a grey squirrel once while bow hunting. They are that fast and by up I mean around 40+ ft. I couldn't believe it's speed and agility. It had that squirrel in around ten seconds and that was up, down and gone in that time. It also spotted me in full camo 20ft up in a tree a few days later 50 yards out at a steady run and nose down like they always are and only hesitated for a just a second or two with a memorable stare down before it fled. Amazing creatures but they will definitely go homicidal maniac on anything and everything they can in the woods sometimes almost cleaning it out completely.
Yep! Fishers are also one of the only mammals that can climb down a tree head first
Fishers are cutest.
A fisher came within 10 feet of me in a meadow swale in the Siskiyous before I had to speak out and scare him off.
He was even more well-muscled than the one in this video. I was afraid if I surprised him any closer, he might try to bite me.
He looked me right in the eyes with a very expressive utterly mortified face. It was so cute I wanted to kiss his face.
I have come across a fisher kill zone while hunting snowshoe hare. There was a half dozen porcupine carcasses in a small area. Pretty interesting find.
Superb footage. I'm interested in porcupines. Thanks.
Great videos. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Look forward to many more videos.
More to come!
Reposting this from Twitter: Something weird I have been wondering about: At my home in eastern Ontario, we have a lot of both porcupines and fishers. But it wasn't always that way. When I was kid there were lots of porcupines but no fishers. Then fishers recolonized eastern Ontario starting in the 90s and at some point I stopped seeing porcupines. They were gone and I supposed that maybe their natural density in the presence of fishers was just low. But now we have lots of both and I think that porcupines must somehow learn defense strategies and/or tactics. I would love to know, what did they change to avoid being predated and how is that behaviour learned and transmitted. For the last few years I've had a porcupine living under my porch. It killed an apple tree and has my front yard White Spruce looking pretty sparse but I it usually makes these long nightly treks across a field to the woods. Another nearby porcupine has been absolutely vandalizing tamaracks; it girdles them about 2/3 of the way up the trunk and then moves on to the next tree. I'm less sanguine about that one and am rooting for the fishers a bit.
Shoot it
interesting. i doubt these creatures can learn new strategies as 99% of what they’re doing is innate instinct. but i don’t know, maybe they’re smart like pigs. folks can put old stove pipe around favourite tree trunk.
Very cool. We have several trail cams at a porcupine den in Colorado. No fishers here but lots of traffic near and in that den. I have several videos on my website. Love this one here. Thank you so much.
In Northern California I observed a Fisher that stretched across a standard logging road that was at least 6 foot wide . It was equally that long , and moved like a slinky . Had a younger one come to my cabin that had no fear of my cat , dog , or me . Literally came inside my space and created quite the fiasco including a flying squirrel . I was momentarily in a hilarious cartoon which was serious at the same time . Interesting moment at 3in the morning .
Add wolverine and lynx to your list of animals that frequently take quill pigs.
Great footage!
Thanks for the great video
3:03 Lol! 😆
Informative video with some funny commentary. 👍🏻
Amazing video, keep it up brother!
Great video!!
Yes my munchkins, a commentary on Plus Size Living among porcupines! But no judgements!
Terrific footage,learned a lot
i’m too lazy to read thru all the comments to see if this has been discussed. i’d be surprised if it wasn’t. what i’m refer to is the suggestion that porcupines are safe from fishers once in a tree. a porky defends itself by keeping its backside facing the predator. and it’s vulnerable face away from it. a porky isn’t a fast animal (except the speed with which it can whip its tail). which i guess is why they practice spinning around as captured on your excellent video. when on a small branch, or on the trunk of the tree i’d presume they have an even slower spin ability than when on the ground. a fisher is incredibly agile. i have never witnessed this but i’m just surmising. i happen to live in an oddball area where you see a porcupine almost every time i go snowshoeing. i’ve seen 2 kill sites so far (in both cases juveniles) but couldn’t piece together from the tracks how it went down or even what the predator was. anyway,if a fisher got a porky out on a limb and got on the face side of it i’m guessing it would not go well for the porky. great vid, hope more camera footage will be forthcoming. oh but here’s a complaint: the title of your vid is purposely misleading. please don’t.
that racoon like come in guys the waters fine lol
Do the Fishers have good aboreal skills like the Martens ? Must be harder for the Porcupine to do the defensive spin up in the tree, If I was the Fisher id wait up the tree !
Love the vid keep em coming
Thanks, yeah the fishers are good climbers but I think the porcs just keep their rear end facing them, but who knows, maybe we need to get some cameras up in the trees!
They can fly through the trees, they are very good at catching Squirrels and even Bird's. Turkeys that are roosted at night.
I see people do a hell of a lot more damage to trees than any porcupine.
So heck with the fishers then?
@@brodyhess5553 No I think fishers are cool creatures too. I didn't know I had to pick sides.
yup! people destroys everything on this planet! so heck with people then😁
@@dr.jones.3832start with yourself first.
Bears, Bobcats, and mountain lions will also attempt to flip a porcupine over to get at the unprotected underbelly....but much more rarely compared to the fisher.
That was quite interesting and funny.
Fish it pork it pin it stick it spin it eat it lick it drink it slap it poke it catch it trap it tree it chase it charge it run it laugh it love it feel it hear it lust it forget it ! Call it forget it just don't pay it
Darn! I was hoping to see the actual take down.
Stay tuned, I want to try again. I was ready to set again this year but there wasn't enough snow. Hopefully next winter!
Me too!
Same!
Crazy cool. Thanks . Much appreciated !
Awesome video! I hope you can capture it!
I'm going back this year to try again - stay tuned!
Snow didn't cooperate but will try again next winter.
I met up with a porcupine on a cart road once he went right past me and I walked off the trail. He's like get out of my way my legs are only 6inches long so you step off the trail human.
Thanks so much for this video
So which was the hunting part
great video!
Any chance they're spinning around because they're detecting the trail camera?
The fisher was re- introduced in Michigan's Upper Peninsula several years ago to help control porcupines. They did a great job with the porcupines, you never even see a road kill porky anymore. The problem is, the porcupines are way down in numbers but the fishers are still here. The fishers are destroying the snowshoe hare population now. There is really no legal way to control the fisher population. The trapping season lasts for less than 2 weeks a year and the fisher limit is one. Legal methods for controlling porcupines by humans are numerous. There is no closed season and no bag limit on porcupines. Re-introducing predators in an area with human population is not the answer to control anything. WE are now the predators. Rather than introduce menaces like fishers and martin, just put a notice in the hunting rule book encouraging people to kill animals the DNR wants to reduce in population. Heck, give it a slogan. "Save a tree, shoot a porcupine". If you are a trapper, please come to the UP in December and get some martin and fisher. Even better, bring a bus load of Boy Scouts to trap them with you.
Hopefully they’d help the lynx if we had less bunny predation
you have fishers and deep snow in North Carolina? Please tell me you a in Alberta or outside of Kamiloops
this footage is all from Upstate NY
@@wild.animals I am almost sort of maybe half convinced I saw one in western rural NJ a few years ago.
porcupines look similiar to beavers to me, i wonder if they are related
I believe it’s actually the Racoon Coalition. It’s not fair to associate them with hurtful words like “posse”.
Porcupines are so smart.........back themselves up to their holes and pretty much NOTHING can touch them.
There is footage of a fisher killing a porcupine on a Canadian site. The fisher first got above the porcupine in the tree and forced it down. It then repeatedly bit the porcupine on the nose, rapidly moving around as the prey span around in defence. The porcupine eventually tired and was flipped over by the fisher. I think it was a government site but I can no longer find it.
Please share.
@@DanBogan-hz2xh It was possibly an artificially created encounter which is probably why they took it down. It was a government site.
New York has a growing population of Fisher Cats and the turkey population isn't happy.
I never thought I'd see porcupine porn! Thanks for sharing this, I live where there are pocupines and fisher cats. I have found porcupine skin laid out, quills facing down and all the meat/bones fat gone, bones spread over the area. Is there any animal the fisher won't eat?
We found a similar porcupine carcass once, crazy, only the skull and tail were still with the skin, and the skull had been CRUSHED!
@@wild.animals Thanks for confirming what I saw was not unique. Thank you for this video. When I found the first porcupine skin I was literally afraid. I could not imagine what could have done that never having heard about fishers.
Skunk
How do porcupines mate? Carefully!
Fisher vs ?
From what I understand, Fishers are not native to North America and were introduced to control Porcupines. "Correct me if I'm right and correct me if I'm wrong"
I believe that fishers are native to North America. What happened was that in the early 1900s, the authorities in the Great Lakes area found that trees were being wiped out due to a large number of porcupines, because the fishers had been overtrapped. The authorities then reintroduced the fisher to places where they were needed .
Fishers are native to North America, in fact, they live no where else!
Very interesting footage, however, I didn’t expect to be viewing porcupine porn.
Raccoons, the garbage men of the forest.
Not 1 interaction between a porcupine and a fisher on this video, not 1.
no fights, unfortunately, but the fisher did run up to a denning porcupine in one scene, thats the best I got, I will try again!
Matthew Frank MIKO outdoor
That channel recommended you
Tunnels look man made. Check into that. Looks like a water channel.
no its a really cool site with cliffs and crevices. That pic I show is actually from a geologists who studies the site.
Mountain Lions have been known to kill and Eat them too.
yes, they are probably the only other predator that regularly hunts porcs
3:48
Africa porcupine was more dangerous than America porcupine.
Africa porcupine is very dangerous…just like Africa.
Fur forest.
Porcuporn. ? Was funny
I live in pa I was tought the fisher bites the nose of the porky and a porky has evolved to protect its nose by sleeping with its nose up a tree with it pointing at the terminal not towards the trunk as a biologist the only meat a human can eat raw is a porky also the porky is the hunters friend it is easy to kill because it protects its nose what college did you attend the animal world is not kind research my comments if I'm full of it shame on me I'm going to eat the next one and as a trapper I get 20 dollars a once for quills over 6 inch which make the most beautiful boxes in Canada lot more info degreed biologist just saying
wrong wrong wrong it in the wolverine family
Wolverine and weasel (and fisher) are all in the same family, the Mustelidae. 👍
Steve Chapman - you need to educate yourself a bit more, bro! LOL...
@wc and @Irish Kelly, actually, you are both wrong, Mustelidae is now regarded as polyphyletic, the skunks, stink badgers, badgers, otters, zorillas, muishund, shulang, huro, grisons, wolverine, tayra, martens, and fisher are not classified under Mustelidae anymore, they are all relocated to four separate families, the skunks and stink badgers now both constitute the family Mephitidae, badgers are a monophyletic group and constitute the family Melidae, otters are reranked as a full family (Lutridae), and the zorillas, muishund, shulang, huro, grisons, wolverine, tayra, martens, and fisher all constitute the family Ictonychidae, leaving Mustelidae to be restricted to only the weasels, ferrets, and minks.
@@indyreno2933 👍New taxonomic classifications notwithstanding- at least what I said was the correct classification previously.
@@indyreno2933 Whew!
Out mountain lions have pretty much wiped out the porcupine population here..
Good