Sports

By Tom Venesky tvenesky@timesleader.com
Sports Reporter
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Dorrance Township trapper Tim Myers felt pretty confident about the mink set he made in a culvert pipe.

It was just before deer season when the set connected, only Myers’ trap held something other than a mink.

“An otter got in the trap and dragged it into the brush,” Myers said. “I had to wrestle him a bit so I could get the snare pole on and release him. They are very aggressive.”

For the last 10 years, Myers has either caught an otter or seen plenty of sign in the streams and farm ponds that he traps. He estimates he has caught and released eight, but otters aren’t the only unique furbearer that frequents Myers’ line.

Myers caught and released two fishers this year, and usually catches one a year in water sets he makes for fox and coyote. Like the otters, Myers releases every fisher he catches, but it may not be long before he can keep them.

There is no open season for otters and fishers in the state, but the Pennsylvania Game Commission is looking into the feasibility of creating trapping seasons for the two furbearers.

PGC spokesman Jerry Feaser said a trapping season for fisher is part of the management plan that has been drafted for the species. The agency began releasing fishers into Pennsylvania in the mid-1990’s and the population has established itself throughout the southwest, northcentral and northeast regions of the state.

“We’ve been talking about the desire to move to a fisher season,” Feaser said, adding the initiative has the support of the Pennsylvania Trappers Association.

Tom Hardisky, a regional biologist with the PGC’s Northeast Region office, said his office gets a handful of reported fisher roadkills and incidental catches from trappers every year. He said fisher populations are denser in the southwest, but the northeast region can withstand a limited harvest.

“We know they occur and they are increasing here,” he said.

Feaser said a fisher season won’t happen this year and an exact timeframe will be detailed once the management plan is finalized.

An otter trapping season won’t happen anytime soon, Hardisky said, but he is confident the northeast can support a season.

For several years the northeast office has received reports of roadkilled otters and trappers making incidental catches. Hardisky said the otter population in the northeast is well-established and the species has reached its carrying capacity at many streams they inhabit.

“They are very abundant here, and that’s a reflection of efforts made to clean the water and the fact that this region is the only part of the state where otters weren’t wiped out at the turn of the last century,” he said.

“When it comes to trapping otters and even fishers in Pennsylvania, there’s no problem with harvesting them. It just has to be done the right way.”

The right way could mean a permit system, similar to the one in place for bobcats, that would allow the agency to limit how many are caught and where.

Myers agreed with the permit approach and said he’d like to be able to keep an otter or fisher and have it mounted.

“A permit process is the right way because you don’t want to see either species hit too hard,” Myers said. “Based on what I’ve seen on my line the last 10 years, I’m sure we could handle a fisher and otter season.”

Feaser said a fisher season is closer to happening than a season for otters, but he didn’t rule it out.

“An otter season is farther way, but it is a possibility,” he said. “The northeast has always been a good place for otters because that was one of their last holdouts.”