The fisher (Pekania pennanti) is a carnivorous mammal native to North America, a forest-dwelling creature whose range covers much of the boreal forest in Canada to the northern United States.

In some regions, the fisher is known as a pekan, derived from its name in the Abenaki language, or wejack, an Algonquian word (cf.

Other Native American names for the fisher are Chipewyan thacho[4] and Carrier chunihcho,[5] both meaning "big marten", and Wabanaki uskool.

Conservation and protection measures have allowed the species to rebound, but their current range is still reduced from its historical limits.

Although an agile climber, it spends most of its time on the forest floor, where it prefers to forage around fallen trees.

The name is instead related to the word "fitch", meaning a European polecat (Mustela putorius) or pelt thereof, due to the resemblance to that animal.

The dentition formula is: 3.1.4.12.1.4.2[11] Some evidence shows that ancestors of the fisher migrated to North America during the Pliocene era between 2.5 and 5.0 million years ago.

The color ranges from deep brown to black, although it appears to be much blacker in the winter when contrasted with white snow.

On the hind paws are coarse hairs that grow between the pads and the toes, giving them added traction when walking on slippery surfaces.

[18] Fishers have highly mobile ankle joints that can rotate their hind paws almost 180°, allowing them to maneuver well in trees and climb down head-first.

[21] A circular patch of hair on the central pad of their hind paws marks plantar glands that give off a distinctive odor.

Since these patches become enlarged during breeding season, they are likely used to make a scent trail to allow fishers to find each other so they can mate.

Although their primary prey is snowshoe hares and porcupines, they are also known to supplement their diet with insects, nuts, berries, and mushrooms.

Analyses of stomach contents and scat have found evidence of birds, small mammals, and even deer—the latter indicating that they are not averse to eating carrion.

[22] While the behavior is not common, fishers have been known to kill larger animals, such as wild turkey, raccoon, fox, marten, mink, otter, bobcat, and Canada lynx.

[27] Signs of struggle indicated that some lynx attempted to defend themselves but McClellan states that "the fishers would finish the cats off pretty quickly.

Stories in popular literature indicate that fishers can flip a porcupine onto its back and "scoop out its belly like a ripe melon".

[30] Observational studies show that fishers make repeated biting attacks on the face of a porcupine and kill it after about 25–30 minutes.

Kits are completely dependent on their mother's milk for the first eight to ten weeks, after which they begin to switch to a solid diet.

Since female fishers require moderately large trees for denning, forests that have been heavily logged and have extensive second growth appear to be unsuitable for their needs.

In western forests, where fire regularly removes understory debris, fishers show a preference for riparian woodland habitat.

They are present in the boreal and mixed deciduous-coniferous forest belt that runs across Canada from Nova Scotia in the east to the Pacific shore of British Columbia and north to Alaska.

Increasing forest cover in eastern North America means that fisher populations will remain sufficiently robust for the near future.

In 1961, fishers from British Columbia and Minnesota were reintroduced in Oregon to the southern Cascades near Klamath Falls and to the Wallowa Mountains near La Grande.

Fish and Wildlife Service recommended that fishers be removed from the endangered list in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.

[14] Recent studies, as well as anecdotal evidence, show that fishers have begun making inroads into suburban backyards, farmland, and periurban areas in several US states and eastern Canada, as far south as most of northern Massachusetts, New York,[57][58] Connecticut,[59] Minnesota and Iowa,[60] and even northwestern New Jersey.

It is reported that fisher tails were used in the making of spodiks, a form of ceremonial hat worn by Jews of certain Hasidic sects.

His primary interest was an attempt to measure the activity of fishers to determine how much food the animals required to function.

[87] In 2012, a study conducted by the Integral Ecology Research Center,[88] UC Davis, U.S. Forest Service, and the Hoopa tribe showed that fishers in California were exposed to and killed by anticoagulant rodenticides associated with marijuana cultivation.

Langford uses the ecology and known habits of the fisher to weave a tale of survival and tolerance in the northern woods of Canada.