I thought this was a fisher cat...

[Anonymous]

(Picture is MIA. No archived version found; no clues whether it was posted anywhere esle.)

This picture is two frames from a videotape I took, in northern Vermont, in 2000.
At first I thought it was a sea otter. But of course it wasn't, as we're on a mountain in Vermont. So people said, could it be a fisher cat? I looked up fisher cats, and decided, yeah, it was probably one.

But today I was bored and looked up Fisher Cats... and I'm kinda doubting it was what I saw. The head seems too elongated, and the legs seem thinner and more upright.
Or, maybe the head just looks weird because its obscured by leaves, and its standing up alert.
Hmm, looking at even more pictures (they're hard to find online), I'm again thinking its a Fisher Cat.
Anyone got any ideas?

A fisher cat:

And right after seeing this, we ran into three HUGE moose. Didn't get them on camera though.

 

[Anonymous]

I think it was a fisher cat - here's another pic of one and the nose looks elongated to me....

fisher

One of those things scared the heck outta me in New Hampshire a couple years back.

 

[Pete Younger]

They look cute, not sure I'd want to pet one though.

 

[Anonymous]

no, they're nasty critters. They can kill and skin porcupines!
Scared us away. We were in the middle of nowhere. Strange, fairly large animal in road? No thanks.
(to judge scale, the road was about a car-width wide. ignore the white circle, its not right)

 

[Anonymous]

I've never heard of these animals at all. One pic there looks like a big otter all right. Are they actually cats? or some other family like weasels or otters? What is the scientific name and I can check them out in my brothers animal encyclopedia.

 

[Anonymous]

Looks basically quite like a wolverine? So a member of the weasel/badger mustelid axis?

 

[Anonymous]

Yes,fishers are mustelids.

 

[evilsprout]

The Fisher's latin name is Martes pennanti, and it's a huge f*ck-off member of the same genus as the Pine Marten and Beech Marten.

I'd say Piscez's still looks pretty much like one.

 

[Anonymous]

Yeah, you don't want to meet one of those fellas in a dark alley (or a dark parking lot)