Wild Turkeys in New Hampshire, Fisher Cats in West Virginia

By Jim on February 15th, 2009

John Harrigan has more on the New Hampshire Fisher Cat and Virginia Turkey exchange that got New Hampshire’s turkey population back on track in the 1970s:

The 1970-71 exchange involved 31 New Hampshire fishers for 31 West Virginia turkeys. Walski and cohorts released the turkeys in Deerfield, Nottingham and Pawtuckaway. That effort failed, due largely to unsuitable habitat (few active farms) and one of the hardest winters on record.

The next attempt, in 1975, involved turkeys released in the Keene/Walpole/Swanzey region. That one took hold, and subsequent transplanting of the offspring repopulated most of the lower half of the state.

Meanwhile, back in West Virginia, the New Hampshire fishers evidently felt right at home and busily went about doing what fishers do best (after killing things), which is making little fishers and extending their range to find more stuff to kill. Of 55 counties there, Ted learned, 22 now have fishers in such abundance that controlled trapping is allowed, and the surplus population has even moved (“invaded,” fisher-haters would put it, and there are indeed fisher-haters) into Maryland. That state, to date, has not asked for federal disaster relief.

Addendum: From 1996 to ’99, 175 New Hampshire fishers went to Pennsylvania in a successful reintroduction project. Ditto for Connecticut, where Nutmeg Staters are now in their fourth trapping season.