[sugarmama!]

i will never ever forget the week of screams i heard about 17 years ago. my mom and brother had both heard the screams in the middle of the night. (we lived in an old farm house...no A/C. open windows with the fans that fit in)

anyhow, both mom and brother had mentioned the noise/screaming to me. but because i was on the other side of the upstairs, i never heard the sound. well, one night i did.

it was exactly as they described. like a woman screaming from a major beating. we had a bobcat. it went on for almost 10 days. i wonder if it was breeding/mating/in heat???

i was so scared i went and slept with my brother.

[FourWands]

Originally Posted by arel

From what I have read and seen on TV, healthy fishers can be very tame with humans. I could be wrong on this - I am not by any means an expert - but I don't think they are generally a danger to people.

I wouldn't want to test that theory. I think I have seen just about every pet out there but that's not one of them...

Any idea what the incidence of rabid fishers is?

[OhBeeHave]

Originally Posted by mustmove

I thought all that late night screaming was the neighbors having tax bill nightmares...

That was the LIers you heard....

[quickdraw]

Originally Posted by Targo

You're far more likely to meet an alien in VT then a fisher cat.

Amen. I don't know anyone who has seen one. I suspect most people who think they've seen one really saw something else.

Coyotes are plentiful though

[Mega_Hertz]

was this the sound you people heard.
I was recording sound of a canoe late at night last night and this critter came rushing up behind me screaming.
http://firepostdigital.dyndns.org/Critter_01.mp3

http://firepostdigital.dyndns.org/Critter_02.mp3

the second sample is the closer one about 20 ft away, i banged the canoe as i jumped out

i didnt get a good look at it, but i saw something like a baby mink in the yard a week earlier, so i think it could have been the parent protecting is young one. And the minx looking thing was a baby fisher, (Martes pennanti) It looked very similar to marten pictures i saw.

I thought it may have been a lynx but i think the fisher is the real critter

[Tupperpatr]

I know we have fisher cats in our back woods in Jericho. I have seen them. The local vet warns all cat owners about them.

[Mary77]

We were out walking one night around 7:00 pm and we saw a Fisher Cat cross the road in front of us. It looked like a big, overgrown Weasel. I think they are more common than people think. When we first moved here a guy told me that a trailer park here in Milton was having problems with Fisher Cats walking along the tops of the trailers and some of the cats disappeared.

[doobug]

i woke up to that creepy scream last night. it woke up my whole family. i looked out the window after it got extremely loud and i saw a housecat sauntering up the road. (very wooded area) and sure enough, about 8-10 feet behind him was a fischer cat.although we were safely in our house, it still left us feeling a bit uncomfortable.yikes.

[reindeerlady]

Originally Posted by doobug

i woke up to that creepy scream last night. it woke up my whole family. i looked out the window after it got extremely loud and i saw a housecat sauntering up the road. (very wooded area) and sure enough, about 8-10 feet behind him was a fischer cat.although we were safely in our house, it still left us feeling a bit uncomfortable.yikes.

This sort of irresponsibility on the owner's part makes me beyond mad. Outside is no place for a cat in Vermont, no matter what. I pray that cat is still alive today. I lived for several years on Elmore Mountain in Morrisville. We had a fisher cat visit quite often, as I fed the birds, yet also had a lot of chipmunks and woodchucks, fox and mice around.

[Tupperpatr]

I agree - all house cats should be in at night in Vermont. Does not matter if you are in a rural area or the 'burbs - those fisher cats love a well fed house cat. House cats are no match for a fisher - they will lose the battle every time. Fisher also love the dawn hours to hunt- so do not think your cat is safe if you let it out at 5 a.m. I used to send my black lab out to do security check before I let the cat out at 7 a.m. just to be sure nothing was lurking around the back yard.