There haven’t been any fishers released or trapped and relocated since before the last license increase. There are still some Grad Students doing some fisher population monitoring, but that is primarily with University funds.

Yes deer were dropped from a helicopter to provide fisher food the winter after they were first released.

Bluebird’s questions about the habitat in this area being good or bad is just one more example of how far out of touch he is with the reality of the deer/habitat relationships or the total habitat situation.

We have many areas with excellent habitat that feed a lot of various kinds of wildlife, including both deer and pheasant. But, we also have a lot more area with very poor habitat that can’t support many deer, pheasants or much of anything else.

It isn’t enough just to have some good habitat, you also have to have that good habitat in the right places or is still can’t support much wildlife. We have tons of excellent deer habitat and food on the tops of the ridges and the plateau but when we get a hard winter with deep snows the deer can’t live there so that excellent habitat is as inaccessible to the deer as if it were on the moon. In these northern tier mountainous areas if you don’t have enough prime wintering grounds habitat you can’t support more deer during the hard winter years.

R.S. Bodenhorn