Tracking elusive fishers in British Columbia

Somewhere deep in British Columbia’s boreal forest lives a small population of unique and secretive carnivores most humans never see.

The fisher (Pekania pennanti) is a critter exceptionally good at eluding even the most talented wildlife trackers. But for today’s guests, who have spent many cold mornings out in the field to learn more about these mustelids, even the stealthiest of fishers couldn’t keep all of their secrets. 

In this episode of “Our Wild Lives,” Katie Perkins-Rohrbach, TWS digital content manager, is joined by Alexia Constantino, a PhD Candidate at the University of Victoria and Rich Weir, a senior wildlife biologist at Artemis Wildlife Consultants, to explore their combined decades of experience researching fishers. 

“Our Wild Lives” is The Wildlife Society’s biweekly podcast, sharing compelling stories from wildlife professionals doing critical work around the world. Your hosts, Katie Perkins-Rohrbach and Ed Arnett, of The Wildlife Society, bring you thought-provoking conversations with leading experts and emerging voices. 

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Transcript

​[00:00:00] Music

[00:00:02] Rich Weir: They have the world's worst name 'cause not only do they not fish, they don't go anywhere near water particularly. Uh, it's just the whole name is, is problematic.

[00:00:15] Alexia Constantinou: it's very unique and it's also humbling because man, this thing could jump out of any branch or off any tree and really be-- they're very agile. So that just makes me feel even less athletic when I'm walking around in slash and I think about how they get around. 

[00:00:32] Rich Weir: I call fishers the ninjas of the forest. , They're, stealthy they're sleek, they're secretive.

They're cloaked in black. And you just never see them, even though they're there.

*Intro Music

[00:00:56] Katie Perkins: Well,

Alexia and Rich, thank you so much for joining us today. Before we get [00:01:00] started, could you both just kinda take turns and tell me a little bit about yourself, where you're at, and the kind of work that you're doing?

Alexia, why don't you go first?

[00:01:07] Alexia Constantinou: Sure. Thanks so much for having us on. My name is Alexia Constantino, and I am a PhD candidate at the University of Victoria in the ACME Lab, the Applied Conservation Macroecology Lab which is a wonderful group of researchers who are working on, uh, pressing anthropogenic and landscape issues for generally large wildlife which includes work in the oil sands of Alberta forestry questions on Vancouver Island, work in the interior of British Columbia and Alberta. and my work is also in partnership with and sponsored by Esk'etemc Nation near Williams Lake, British Columbia, and their fire and forestry company, Alkali Resource Management

[00:01:52] Katie Perkins: Awesome. What about you, Rich?

[00:01:54] Rich Weir: Yeah, my name's Rich Weir. I'm a wildlife biologist in... Well, I live on [00:02:00] Vancouver Island in Western Canada. I've been working on fishers for a very, very long time. Since I first, uh, finished my undergrad, I started working on fishers. Uh, and so I've-- that's kind of been the focus of my career, largely, has been fishers and all those fisher-type things.

Uh, I was the carnivore conservation specialist for the province for a number of years. Um, but I've, uh, flipped it back to my previous gig, which was doing consulting, which is essen- I essentially get to do conservation research on all sorts of cool animals, mostly carni- well, almost entirely carnivores, and mostly fishers.

So that's what I get to do on my day-to-day job

[00:02:36] Katie Perkins: Awesome. And so that's what we're here to talk about. We're here to talk all things fishers today. Which I was telling my family I was getting ready for this interview, and they looked at me dead in the eye and they said, "What is a fisher? Like, I've never heard of that in my life." And I don't think I had heard of those before I came to TWS.

So why don't you just tell us, like tell us everything about fishers

[00:02:54] Rich Weir: How long do you have? Uh, yeah. Fishers are an interesting [00:03:00] animal. They're not one that's readily seen, so people don't tend to know a whole lot about them or know they're out there. And, uh, they... when I tell people I work on fishers, I get exactly that reaction, like, "What is a fisher?"

Usually, it's, uh, people think I'm talking about kingfishers, and then they'll say, "Oh, the bird." I'm like, "No, it's actually you know, there's a, a, a carnivore that, by that name." They have the world's worst name 'cause not only do they not fish, they don't go anywhere near water particularly. Uh, it's just, it's just the whole name is, is problematic.

And people don't see them very often unless you're in the Eastern, uh, North America, where they're a little bit more common. People will see them. But where I work in British Columbia, people rarely see fishers. And even people who spend their entire life working out in the woods will never see a fisher.

And so, uh, it's not kind of in the, uh, in the kind of realm of what people th- think of as wildlife. Uh, and one of the reasons I think is, is 'cause they're very, very secretive. I call fishers [00:04:00] the ninjas of the forest. They're stealthy, they're sleek, they're secretive.

They're cloaked in black. And you just never see them, even though they're there. So they're an animal that doesn't get a lot of attention because they're hard to see. But that-- I think that makes them, uh, adds some allure to them and makes them much, much more interesting to study and learn about

[00:04:19] Katie Perkins: So how did you learn how to start finding them? 'Cause I imagine when you first went out fresh out of undergrad, you're looking around, like was it something that came naturally to you, or is it something that you really had to develop over your career?

[00:04:34] Rich Weir: Well, I would say that fishers are not the easiest animal in the world to study. They're

I mean in British Columbia there's not a lot of them. They're difficult to capture. The-- th- They're difficult to see and learn about. And when I started, 35 years ago working on fishers, not very much was known about them. There was-- had been a few studies done in Eastern North America. There'd been no work done in, British Columbia. And so we c- we're kinda starting from square one. 

I mean, I worked with a lot of really great trappers who helped [00:05:00] me capture fishers.

I learned a lot about fishers from them. Uh, and then, you know, over the years we've, we've radio tagged a number and followed them around and and learned quite a bit. But it's, uh, it's always been a little bit of a challenge 'cause they're hard to find uh, hard to see and hard to capture. They don't share their stories willingly.

 uh,

[00:05:20] Katie Perkins: Alexia, you've done work on fishers as well, right? When you're talking to someone, how do you explain what they are?

[00:05:25] Alexia Constantinou: My favorite way to start explaining what a fisher is that it's a tubular carnivore. Most people I think can picture a wolverine or some, here and there someone says Hugh Jackman. There's some kind of joke about a wolverine there. But or they kind of know what an ermine is or a smaller weasel, that they can picture that these are long and skinny creatures that we have impressions of that they're very voracious carnivores and that they're very ferocious animals. And so I usually explain to people that they're between a wolverine and a marten. They're a few [00:06:00] kilos and that they kind of look like they have a bit of bear and cat in them, that they have this really adorable face, but that they're impressive hunters and very impressive at navigating difficult environments as well. So one of the neat bits that I like to tell people early on when talking about fishers is that they are one of the only critters that we have in North America that can successfully pursue and has a tactic for killing porcupines. And so porcupines are quilled all over their body except for their underbelly and for their eyes and nose and mouth area. And so fishers, especially very agile and lithe female fishers, can kind of run circles around a porcupine and continually nip at it where it's unquilled, and then disorient it and eventually after what I would imagine is a very tiring endeavor for the porcupine flip it over and eat it. So not very many animals do [00:07:00] that, and I think it often makes my friends at least say, "Oh, okay, I was not expecting that. That's very impressive."

[00:07:06] Katie Perkins: Yeah, this is not your average weasel you would say?

[00:07:09] Alexia Constantinou: No

[00:07:11] Katie Perkins: So what else have you learned working on... Maybe Rich you could kind of just take us through, working with a species for 35 years, like do you feel like you know it well now, or do you feel like there's still so much you don't know?

[00:07:22] Rich Weir: I feel like I've learned a little bit, but not as much as we would like to have. I've always thought that I would probably learn more in five minutes of seeing the world through a fisher's eyes than I have in 35 years of doing research, just because there's so many things that we don't know about how they just see the world, how they make a living, and how they kind of, just navigate their world and what their motivations are.

So I've always thought that would be lovely to be able to see the world through a fisher's eyes. But you know, we've learned a bit over the years, but there's still so many unanswered questions about particularly why their populations where we we work are declining so rapidly

[00:07:59] Katie Perkins: [00:08:00] Yeah. What kind of role What's

do they play in an ecosystem? 

[00:08:03] Rich Weir: I think particularly in areas where they're more common, they play kind of a really central role in, in consuming some of the smaller, mid-sized prey. They're not like wolves that take down full-size ungulates very often. They're focusing in on kind of the mid-sized prey, so like snowshoe hares, squirrels, porcupines are a pretty big, uh, food item if they can, uh, if they're there, and can get them. But they're, they really are important for kind of regulating those populations of those an- those animal species.

If you pull them out of a system, if they're not there anymore, then you kind of get an unbalance within, the rest of the ecosystem. Either there's other animals that move in that, that, of aren't as adept at controlling that or dealing with snowshoe hares, for example And so there's, th- there's a, a kind of an intricate cog that they play in the ecosystem is kind of the way that I look at it.

[00:08:54] Katie Perkins: Stay with us. We'll be right back after this message. Whether you're a student, early career [00:09:00] professional, or seasoned biologist, The Wildlife Society has the tools to help you grow. From career resources and job boards to science-based publications and networking, TWS is your professional home. Learn more at wildlife.org.​

Rich, you said you've only been only been bitten twice bya fisher. Um, what is it like working in the field with them, doing some of that more hands-on management, putting trackers on them, learning all that kind of stuff?

[00:09:29] Rich Weir: Fishers are, as I said, they're a difficult animal to capture. Th-they don't, uh, they don't readily go into live traps, at least the ones that I work on, unfortunately. And the times that I have been bit have been, that is entirely my fault. I was doing, uh, you know, sticking my hand in a cage with a not entirely sedated animal. You know, you get bit when you do that. I mean, they're just protecting themselves. But tagging them, uh, requires a fair bit of, uh, a fair bit of effort.

 and It's once we get them tagged that we can really start to learn more about what [00:10:00] they do and how they do things and, and, and how they kinda make, make their living out there

[00:10:05] Katie Perkins: Yeah. Alexia, do you have any field stories for us of your work on the fishers? of 

[00:10:10] Alexia Constantinou: Sure. Most of my work in this PhD project has, focused on more non-invasive methods primarily camera traps and also interviewing people in the community about where the fishers are, where the porcupines are, and so on. And so one of the greatest pleasures of this project is that I do spend lots of time at Esk'etemc and with their Guardians program in the Lands and Resources Department and with the Alkali Resource Management staff.

And so that means that I get to go to the field with, first of all, wonderful people. But also I get to go to the field with people who know the land, and I don't just mean people who are really knowledgeable about the roads and, you know, know an area like the back of their hand. It's to a much [00:11:00] greater extent.

I get to go to places with people who say that this was where their grandfather trapped every winter, so they'd get dropped off in November and pick them up in the spring, or this is where the family's cabin is, and this is where that one time I saw a fisher for the first time in my life, and I thought I was gonna get chased all the way back home.

And just really sort of how Rich said it w- it would be so amazing to see the world through a fisher's eyes for five minutes. I do get opportunities to see the world through people's eyes who know their territory as well as they do. And so I get opportunities to glimpse into what it looked like years ago, what people think it might look like in future when they remember that fire came through, when, you know, Uncle whoever was the one who was hand falling trees here where the berry places are. And so all of that information also is very tightly tied to what wildlife are present. And fisher, [00:12:00] fishers are one part of the biodiversity that makes up that really amazing system and place that I get to work. So generally, the-- my favorite stories have been with people in the field who one, learn more about fishers, then share more information, and have just fantastic things to share about the place where we're standing. So that feels just really lucky and I'm so grateful for that. We've had some really cool days out with the kids from the school at Esket. So we put a fisher collar into another biologist's pocket and then taught the kids how to do radio telemetry. And so they tracked our colleague down in the forest and my favorite thing, this was all teenagers and at the end of the day we said, "Okay, where are the trucks?"

'Cause we were hoping to teach them also how to orient themselves in the woods. And all their arms went in different directions. And so all the adults said, "Okay, I'll follow a different kid. You take me back to where you think the trucks are." And all of the teenagers went in different directions [00:13:00] And then they all looked back at each other and were like, "Okay, surely one of us is wrong." And so that's one of my favorite things is getting to share that working with wildlife and neat stories from the field can be also a great career option for people. Um, It would be just the greatest pleasure for one of the kids I work with to become Esk'etemcs next fisher biologist.

[00:13:22] Katie Perkins: Yeah. That's awesome. Tell me a little bit more about that project and kind of what you're learning from the communication with, you know, different communities about wildlife

[00:13:33] Alexia Constantinou: Yeah, this project, I think I should start by saying that this project just wouldn't exist in the way that it does without Esk'etem. I-- The way it came about initially was I did a very small contract for one of the folks that Rich worked with at government, or actually two of the folks that Rich worked with at government. And it was to look at what kind of resources would be needed to have First Nations across the interior implement their own [00:14:00] mesocarnivore monitoring with cameras. at the end of some of the scoping and implementation for what this would cost or how many cameras would be needed and what territories would be covered I very boldly said to mesocarnivore biologist Joanna Burger um, you should make this my PhD, I'd be happy to do it." And so that started us working with Esk'etem and some of the neighboring nations on building a project, and it was about a year of applying to, like, having a big grant put together with Francis Johnson, my, my boss at Esk'etem and the registered professional forester and manager at Alkali. We put together over the course of a year a big grant application to fund this PhD for at least four years. And in that process, we got to talk about what knowledge gaps we think there are about fishers, what tools and resources the community would be interested in using to examine them. And of course, [00:15:00] as most people know, the first iteration of a project is not the final iteration of the project.

The methods change, the objectives shift with people and with what you learn. And I'm about to say something that I think is funny, but maybe listeners are like, "Oh, God." That the first chapter of my PhD is a literature review, which is actually cool against all odds. The literature review is very cool. And we went through four hundred and fifty plus citations across different Google Scholar, Web of Science, et cetera, eventually whittle down to a hundred and fifty-eight papers about fishers and their environment across North America. And so Rich and myself have worked on this for a long time with a whole bunch of other amazing fisher biologists, people in the community people who've been working on fishers for a long time. And one of the big gaps in the literature is that we really could find maybe one paper that had ever spoken to a [00:16:00] First Nation about the history of fishers in their territory or the trapping history or that longer term place-based knowledge. And so there are many gaps in the fisher lit review, that we've identified in the literature.

But the lack of indigenous knowledge hints at a number of problems between science or a-academia interfacing with communities and a long-term issue with that. But also highlighted that there is a big, maybe the best way to phrase this is just that something is missing in our holistic understanding of fishers, and it also sits with communities.

So, I feel super privileged and super, super grateful to be working with Esk'etemc and get to talk about those, those issues and what people think about fishers

[00:16:49] Katie Perkins: Yeah, So have you got to really start, like, interviewing members of the First Nation and the community and just what has that been like?

[00:16:58] Alexia Constantinou: Yeah, the, the [00:17:00] interviewing chapter of my PhD was not in the initial version, but it was prompted by community members, especially one of the grandmothers and leaders who advises me Doreen Johnson. She also on the Esk'etemc research ethics policy, and so she's one of the people who vets research that comes into the community. And porcupines have massively disappeared from the central interior of British Columbia. People used to eat porcupine all over BC, and that has absolutely declined, if not, is non-existent in some communities now. And so have done a handful of interviews so far, and there's another 30 at least to go in the next year or two. Which is-- it would be daunting if the interviews weren't as much fun as they are, because getting quality time with someone, either in their home or an office or out on the land to talk about [00:18:00] critters, just exclusively say, "Tell me what you know about porcupines," or, "Tell me what you would like to tell me about fishers." It always leads to very cool stories. And every person has taken it in a different direction with their experience either in forestry or being raised on the land with their family. So we are in the heart of that chapter, and I'm very pleased that people are willing to talk to me about that.

And it's brought out a number of issues that might be causing the decline of porcupines and/or fishers, including roads. Porcupine are killed quite a lot by vehicles. So more roads, more forest service roads is one factor. People have some concerns about cattle and horses and grazing and what that does to the understory. There's also questions about how mountain pine beetle and fire systems that have changed quite a lot in recent decades might be changing food sources for porcupines. And then, Rich said earlier, fishers are such a cog in the [00:19:00] ecosystem, like a central point that keeps these smaller prey in balance, that 

[00:19:04] Rich Weir: when 

[00:19:04] Alexia Constantinou: the fishers decline and maybe porcupines decline, 

[00:19:08] Rich Weir: very 

[00:19:08] Alexia Constantinou: much chicken and the egg, we don't know but that other things seem to be more out of whack with them as well.

[00:19:15] Katie Perkins: I think that's a really fascinating project, and I can't wait to see what comes out of that because like you said, getting to see the world through somebody else's eyes is just so valuable. But you've hinted at this or maybe not hinted you've talked about fishers are declining, especially in, in the areas where you are.

So Rich, could you maybe talk me through like studying them for 35 years, What are some patterns that you've seen you've studied them for such a long time?

[00:19:42] Rich Weir: When I first, uh, started working on fishers, there was a bit of concern that the, the fur harvest of them was, was starting to decline, so people were starting to go, "Hmm, what's going on here?" And that was the impetus for the, for the, my initial study way, way back when. But I th- I think we kind of [00:20:00] realized over the years that fishers are really tied into some pretty key habitats in British Columbia.

Like, they're really linked closely to some old forest attributes. Uh, and in British Columbia, we have a lot of forest industry. There's a lot of, uh, logging. Uh, it's a really important, or was a really important driver in the economy. So everywhere that fishers live are areas that are, that, that are up for forest harvest, essentially.

And we started to notice that as more and more of the primary forest was harvested, there was fewer and fewer fishers. And so over the course of, uh, of the years, we started to notice that fishers were disappearing from certain areas. And then as Alexia mentioned, there was a very large outbreak of mountain pine beetle in, in central British Columbia, which resulted in expedited forest harvest.

So really they just kinda ramped up how much they were harvesting. And fishers are, are really good at, They like having a diversity of different habitats in their, in their territory. So they're actually designed for living in ecosystems where there's a bit of [00:21:00] fire, and so there's, there's turnover in the habitat.

But they're not very good at when it all changes at one time from being kinda late successional forest to early successional forest. So whether that's a burn or a clear cut. And what we found across central BC was there were these huge areas that were being salvage harvested because the pine trees were dying, uh, and that was making those areas basically bereft of fishers because the, the fishers just can't live there if there's no trees.

Uh, and so really that's been a lot of the focus of the work has been trying to l- understand what the relationships between fishers and the habitat is and trying to predict how that's going to, uh, change over time. And, and yeah, like when I started, w- we figured there was probably 2,000 fishers or so in our, in the Colombian population, and now we're, we're down to s- in, in the orders of 4 or 500 adults in, in the population.

So, you know, gone from from reasonably healthy populations to, holy crap, this is gonna [00:22:00] blink out. And, and some of the modeling that, that, uh, Rory Fogarty's done predicts that the population's gonna be, uh, extirpated in kind of 11, 10 or 11 years unless something changes. So, uh, we're in pretty dire straits right now.

Unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily mean that things are changing. We're still, still doing things the way, way we always have. Uh, some, some small bits are changing, but, uh, uh, I, I, I worry about fishers in British Columbia.

I hope, I hope don't wink out while I'm still on the watch

[00:22:31] Katie Perkins: Yeah, I, gosh, those numbers are so sobering to hear. You know, 2,000 to 400, 500, 11 years. You know, are more people concerned about this? Or why are more people not concerned about this?

[00:22:48] Rich Weir: I think part of the problem is they're just not a well-known species. That, that is a bit of a hurdle. You know, people know about grizzly bears, they know about moose, they know about, you know, wolves and, and the larger animals. But, [00:23:00] uh, start talking about a small carnivore that people never see, and it's less, uh, less interest perhaps.

It doesn't mean there shouldn't be concern. I-- like I say, I'm very concerned about the population, but it is a, it is a challenge. And there's been improvements certainly. People are starting to kn- know more and more about fishers, which is great. I love telling fisher stories to whoever will listen to me.

And I, I think probably there's some good stories to tell that would help that we just need to get done

[00:23:27] Katie Perkins: Have you been able to identify, solutions to help this population get back on the up, or is that still work that's being done?

done?

[00:23:37] Rich Weir: We have a pretty good idea of some things that need to change that would definitely help the population. So one of the things that we've found is that within the Columbian population, which is the population that occurs in central British Columbia and is endangered really the, the population is not doing well because the females aren't producing enough babies, and those babies aren't, aren't living long enough to come back into [00:24:00] the population relative to the amount of mortality within the population.

So unfortunately, in British Columbia, although there isn't a trapping season for Columbian fishers there are trapping seasons for all the other fur bearers that are about the same size. So martens is, is kind of one of the primary ones, and fishers are still killed in traps for martens all over all over BC.

And so even though there's no trapping season for fishers, they're still killed incidentally, and that incidental harvest is really what's driving the population into the toilet.

They just can't... That additional source of mortality, they just can't compensate with by producing more babies.

And so we have some pretty good ways in which to reduce mortality in, in- amongst trappers. Unfortunately, the, the government's not particularly interested in applying those because it will-- they-- I'm not sure why. I assume it has something to do with trapper pushback. But there's some real I think- manageable [00:25:00] options that are not being implemented that's making the situation stay the way it is.

And so there's the trapping issue. Fishers are problematic 'cause there's-- they're affected by two different things. One is trapping mortality and also habitat loss from logging. So w- there, there have been some changes in forest management that have kind of helped and have made the loss of habitat less significant as it was, say, 20 years ago.

However, there's still lots of, of forest harvest happening in really important fisher habitats that aren't being managed as they could be.

So there's that aspect as well. So kind of a double-edged sword, that one. It just gets you coming and going

[00:25:39] Alexia Constantinou: Yeah, maybe one thing I could add on to that is that, some foresters and crews who work on, who work in areas where fisher habitat is either still intact or there's lots of good habitat features, the more knowledge that we see someone [00:26:00] gain and opportunities to liaise with nerds like us who really care about fishers and have lots of cool stories to tell about them see that they do implement their work differently.

So it really is not to sound so cliché, but it is really a knowledge is power situation, that there's a comes as people have some affection, I think, for these animals as well, or at least understand their role in the ecosystem. I've seen quite a spectrum in the past couple of years working in the Cariboo region, The folks I work for over the past few years, they already knew what fishers were, but, Alkali Resource Management, when they use the Fisher Habitat Extension tools, they use them in places where they don't even have to.

And also even if an area doesn't look like perfect fisher habitat, still will say, "Okay, well, if it was identified by the tool, maybe we can use a different treatment in here, or minimize the harvest, or the erosion, or the impact, or the machine access." And so I've seen [00:27:00] the technicians and foresters there a approach a forest with very different eyes than I think anyone who would go in with just exclusively timber extraction as their objective. So that holistic management is of the essence. That holistic management doesn't just do good work for fishers, it does good work for thermoregulatory habitat for moose. It does good work for bringing berry bushes back and having harvest for the community. It does good work for having mule deer that are not in super open areas over a harsh winter.

All of those forestry practices that follow best management practices for many different wildlife and keep in mind there are a lot of creatures sharing that forest with you, I think they have a lot more success at also having structural diversity and benefits for people. And on the flip side, I was checking a camera with some of the guardians at the community, and we saw a fisher.

There's a fisher on the camera. There's cougars. It's a really [00:28:00] beautiful spot with big spruces, big broom rusts on trees, wildlife trees, structural diversity. And on our way out from that camera, we came across a truck of folks doing layout for another forestry company in that exact space. And so I had a chat with them, and I said, "What's the harvest looking like in here?

I really wanna make this not confrontational. I just wanna ask you if you know about fishers and what considerations you're using for them." And unfortunately, it seems more and more like, "Oh, uh-oh, another wildlife that's a constraint on our practices."

[00:28:36] Katie Perkins: Yeah 

[00:28:37] Alexia Constantinou: So the-- I think working with forestry and explaining that you can have fishers and forestry on the same landscape, they just have to not be monoculture or large-scale practices is, It's feasible, and I think you can call people in into a good way of doing their work. And so I feel super lucky to see really good versions of harvesting blocks that keep wildlife [00:29:00] habitat in mind and central to the objectives. And then sometimes you have a sad moment where you say, "Okay, well maybe that fisher that I saw in that spruce not be there the next time I come back, or that tree might not be there."

And so it's just a, a little bit more of a kick in the butt to engage well with people who manage the land.

[00:29:18] Katie Perkins: Yeah. How are you planning on using some of your PhD work to further just educate people and tell them more about not only the impact they have on the ecosystem, but the impact they have on communities and all of that?

[00:29:32] Alexia Constantinou: I think that. more and more this is not a novel concept, but researchers have to be able to translate their work into different formats that work for all ages and demographics of people. So one way that Rich and I have tried to tackle this recently was working with the British Columbia chapter of The Wildlife Society to write a letter to the ministry to say that, [00:30:00] fisher exclusion boxes, which are essentially plywood boxes attached to marten traps that would exclude something the size of a fisher from getting in the trap, we wrote a letter to the ministry to say these should be mandatory in all the areas where this endangered population is. So that's one regulatory way that we can try to tackle some of the problems. I have a a myriad of these projects on the go. One is I'm working with a wonderful illustrator friend on a children's book about fishers, just to make it a critter that little kids know about.

We also have written articles for the magazines for the registered professional biologists and forester publications.

So both professional bodies in the province have had at least one presentation and article from us on fishers and how they can work with existing natural resource practices and what improvements might be needed. And also every time I'm up in Williams Lake, I do my best to either be working with the kids or with Esk'etemc or a [00:31:00] neighboring nation to do a presentation on updates, great photos from the camera traps. It's also really nice to be able to say, "I need help with X, Y, or Z. Is there anyone who might want to come to the field with me, or volunteer to be interviewed or something like that?" and I've... guess to put it-- to phrase it this way, I've never gone hungry. No one has ever left me hung out to dry with any of those things. And so I am finding inspiration in trying to make lots of people who don't know about fisher or could know more, interested in it. And I think foresters, um, are one of our target audiences for people who have decision-making power to do something on the land, and that's a great way for us to channel some of our passion. 

And then of course, a children's book would just be a hoot, or some stuffed animals. We're working on that as well.

[00:31:52] Katie Perkins: That's so important. Like you talk about identifying audiences, making people care. You know, if they don't know about it, [00:32:00] like I was 24 years old the first time I heard about a fisher, and I'm someone who liked wildlife and was pretty plugged in, I thought. And so I think that's you're doing the good work to build that knowledge base.

But this kind of ties into Rich, you told me that, you know, science only lays the foundation for change. It doesn't cause change. So from your point of view, if scientific evidence isn't enough to get people to shift how we manage land, how we manage forestry, how we treat wildlife, what is, in your opinion?

[00:32:29] Rich Weir: Yeah, you know, I've always loved wildlife. I knew I always wanted to work in wildlife. And so, you know, I went and got my undergraduate degree, and then started, you know, doing graduate work and kept doing research. And, you know, y- when you, when you go through your undergraduate programs, you learn a lot about how to do science, and certainly when you're in graduate studies you learn how to do science and how to do all that great stuff, which is uh, super fantastic.

And you know, re- uh, I've always thought it's really important to publish, you know, r- results of research so that it's, you know, credible [00:33:00] and, you know, kind of vetted by the scientific community. But when you're publishing, you're publishing to your peers. You're not publishing- you're not producing information that is necessarily gonna be put in the hands of people who need it or who, who, who effect change.

So, you know, even though I, you know, I think I published, I don't know, somewhere around 20 papers, I was like, "You know, things aren't really changing for fishers. As, as a matter of fact, they're getting quite a bit worse."

[00:33:23] Katie Perkins: Right

[00:33:24] Rich Weir: So I don't know, about 15 years ago we started a, a program where we were like, "Okay, we learned all this stuff, really neat stuff about fishers over the years.

Let's get it to the people who actually make decisions about fishers and fisher habitat." So one of the big, uh, components of that is the forest industry, 'cause people in the forest industry make a lot of decisions that affect a lot of fisher habitat. And so we kinda had this goal of, well, how about if we get the information that they need specifically to help them make decisions that produce better outcomes for fishers, it'll be a win.

And it's not that people don't care, they just don't know [00:34:00] about how to do that. And so we developed this fairly large program working with all the members of the forest industry, so whether that's a forester who's planning cut blocks down to the person running a feller buncher who's harvesting the trees.

Every- all of those pe- all the people in that whole span of forestry are making decisions that can affect fisher habitat, and what they need is not me to plunk down a scientific paper and go, "Here, read this." Like, nobody's gonna do that. It needs to be, what are your decisions that you're making that are affecting fisher habitat?

How can I get the information that I have, I've been working really hard to get all this really cool information, how do I get that to you so you can be informed? You can improve your knowledge about what the outcomes of your decisions are. And if you can kinda pipeline it that way, I really find that people, people wanna do a good job in their, the, whatever their, their job is.

They wanna do a good job. And so what we found is that in the forest industry people just didn't know that their decisions were actually negatively affecting fishers. And once you say, "Well, you [00:35:00] know, if you, if you keep these types of trees-" fishers will do a lot better and they're like, "Oh, well, we can do that."

And they start to come up with the solutions themselves. Uh, and so we really, uh, really st- started to kind of shift our... or I certainly shifted my focus. I still do lots of science and stuff, but I make sure that it gets converted into something that's useful for people who are making the decisions that are affecting the fisher habitat.

And so now when we go and talk to foresters and, uh, forest workers, generally, they know a little bit about fishers, but we do very expe- you know, specific training for them to help them get tools and, that will help them make better decisions and we start to see better outcomes for fisher habitat.

Uh, you know, not everyone makes all the decisions that, uh, in fishers' favors, but I think it starts to kind of move things, move the dial the right way. And it's a really... I think that's one thing that's missing when in a, in wildlife science training is how to make sure that the work that you [00:36:00] do gets used, and that's

[00:36:01] Katie Perkins: Yeah 

[00:36:02] Rich Weir: Extension component of, of, uh, of the wildlife world.

And it was something that, uh, took me a long time to figure out how to do, and I wish that there had been a bit of training when I was certainly doing my undergrad and even g- graduate work, like how to take your work and make sure it gets used. 'Cause we're all... One of the problems with universities is it's all academics who are generally, who are in, who are doing the instructing.

The things that are important to them are publishing papers and, and getting their science out to other people. We need to, I think, recognize that those aren't the people who are making the decisions. It's other people, and so you have to change some of the way you take your work and, change how you communicate it to people who, to make sure that they can use it.

So that's been a, a, a large focus of, of the last 10 years of my, of my work has been really focused on, on working with a great number of people to develop tools and training that, that does that. And so, it makes me hopeful, keeps me hopeful, I [00:37:00] guess, because I think that getting the information to the people who need it really is what's gonna make the difference

[00:37:05] Katie Perkins: Yeah. Can you give just, like, a couple pieces of advice, one piece of advice for people listening that are like, "That's the missing piece in my work. How can I, you know, take the first step forward in getting this science into something that's actionable?"

[00:37:20] Rich Weir: I think w- what-- people who go into wildlife science do it because they care about wildlife, right? Like, we all care. We all, uh, we all wanna see wildlife doing well and, and, uh, have sustainable populations. And when we see instances where the populations maybe are drifting away from sustainability there's really kind of a key process you can go through that everybody can do, and that's, you know, identify kinda what's the problem, what's, what's happening that's causing this, this unsustainability.

And that's usually who's making decisions that are affecting, it negatively. And like I said, a lot of time people who are making those decisions don't know that they're affecting something.

So, uh, getting them [00:38:00] the information that they use in their decisions is really kind of one of the key things.

So I always say identify people who are contributing to the problem, work with them to identify w- what their decision space is, so how they're making decisions, and get them information that's gonna help them, uh, incorporate, you know, all the work that you've done into their decision-making.

And that's how you, that's how you affect change, is increasing the knowledge, skills, and abilities of, of the people who are contributing to the issue. So

[00:38:30] Katie Perkins: Rich, how... I can't imagine, you know, if I put myself in your shoes and I'm working on a species for 35 years, and I just see it go downhill, the toll that would take on me. How have you, like from the human emotional side as a wildlife professional, how have you navigated that and as you say, still remain hopeful and still want to work to change things?

[00:38:54] Rich Weir: I think remaining hopeful is a challenge sometimes. But, uh, it's the small victories or small [00:39:00] wins that, that kinda keep you going. So that might be talking to, uh, like if I'm out in a cutblock an operational cutblock, and I'm talking to the person running the feller buncher, them going, "Oh, yeah. No, I can save these trees. That's easy." And you're like, "Yes, this isn't that hard," right?

Like, it, it can be done. You know, there, there are, There's always gonna be instances where the you don't achieve the outcomes you want that are frustrating, and that's usually in the political realm, uh, where the values, uh, that, that we're bringing forward are not the ones that, that the politicians are, are concerned about, and that's, that's always a challenge.

But I think, um, maintaining some positivity and seeing the, the little wins is really what... It's really what keeps me going. And, and like I said before, you know, It really is encouraging when you're working with, with audiences or some- some group to have them go, "Yeah, no, we can do this." Have other people say that, and it's not just me saying, "You can do it," it's them going, "Yeah, yeah, we can do it."

That's always encouraging

[00:39:59] Katie Perkins: [00:40:00] Yeah. To close out, I would really love to know, you know, tell me one specific story that you think back on when you think why you love working in wildlife and working with fishers specifically, and then, you know, maybe some tidbits or facts or unknown things about fishers that you wanna leave people listening with so that they know a little bit more and they can care about the species just a little bit more

[00:40:25] Rich Weir: I've been really lucky to, to have been, have done a lot of field work on fishers over the years. You know, I've done, I don't know, three or four telemetry programs where I'm on the ground following fishers around. And, and that's really, I find, where I, I learn a lot about how fishers see the world.

And one of my absolute favorite field days ever was working in northern BC on a telemetry project where we had a, a bunch of fishers radio tagged. And just being out tracking a, a fisher, so we, we're following, um, this, this one fisher using the radio telemetry. You know, it's an, an, a beautiful sunny day in February.

There's fresh snow on the [00:41:00] ground. There's no wind. It's 10 degrees below freezing. And following her tracks and getting to see how she sees the world a little bit as she's wandering around. She managed to catch a snowshoe hare in that little bit of tracking that I did, so I got to see how she did that.

That was super exciting. And then following her track and, ending up finding her up in a, in a spruce tree, sitting up on a rust broom, eating a snowshoe hare, looking down on me. It was a magical day because it was just, I got to see everything, what was happening in, in that fisher's world really for probably 12 hours beforehand, and it was just a really great learning experience.

Made me feel super blessed to be able to do that. So that was definitely one of my all-time favorite, uh, favorite days. I would say one of the things that people don't know about fishers that once you know, you know, is they smell amazing. Female-- Male fishers get a little bit rank, but female fishers have just this amazing kinda musky rose smell [00:42:00] about them.

It's my favorite smell in the entire world.

[00:42:02] Katie Perkins: Yeah. Well, I did not know that, but now

[00:42:07] Rich Weir: There you go

[00:42:07] Katie Perkins: I'm... Hopefully I see a fisher. I can just, you know, get a nice big whiff, see what it smells like

[00:42:12] Alexia Constantinou: I think for me first is that both Rich and I are maybe anomalies. We like winter field work quite a lot more than summer field work. So mine also are winter favorites recently. I think anyone who uses camera traps knows the feeling of approaching the camera after it's been out for many months and just hoping and hoping that the critters that you're interested in have been on there and there are a few cameras-- I should mention that my cameras are in different ages of burns from the 1980s till present day.

And so I've been going out and setting up cameras in new burns in 2024, '25 and this year hoping to see if fishers do or do not come back into those habitats after they've [00:43:00] burnt or at what severity, maybe there's too much burn and a fisher doesn't come back that year. Or we'll use the area in future when there's more vegetation or something.

We're trying to learn about that. One of my favorite days was this past winter, checking a camera in a 2025 burn and seeing that a fisher had been using it. 

Um,

[00:43:23] Katie Perkins: Wow 

[00:43:23] Alexia Constantinou: Those trees will probably all come down in the next couple of years except for the really big legacy Douglas firs and pines in that area that hundreds of years old and are supposed to be standing there.

They're the ones that are veteran trees that have survived many fires and are part of that fire based ecosystem. And so it was very neat to see behind one big legacy Douglas fir, one big fisher pop out this winter. And to get to see that in an area that had been quite scorched and there's still white ash [00:44:00] and very hot area when we set up the camera. It is interesting and it gives me some hope about how resilient critters can be. So I think that's a neat find from recent fieldwork. And one of my other favorite fisher facts is that they are one of the only animals that can walk face down a tree trunk. So fisher moms will carry their kits in their mouth, and they'll climb down the trunk face first.

[00:44:24] Katie Perkins: Wow

[00:44:27] Alexia Constantinou: yeah, anytime you have a chance to see an animal move like that it's very unique and it's also humbling because man, this thing could jump out of any branch or off any tree and really be-- they're very agile. So that just makes me feel even less athletic when I'm walking around in slash and I think about how they get around. But yeah, those are some neat bits about fishers, and we both just feel so lucky to be on the planet at the same time as this animal.

[00:44:57] Katie Perkins: Yeah. Moving forward, what [00:45:00] is, you know, what's on the horizon for you guys? What are you really focused on, and what are you hoping, you know, the next five, 10 years looks like for fishers in British Columbia?

[00:45:10] Alexia Constantinou: Well, the dream would be that we start to see more of them through all of our methods of detection, so through the hair snagging surveys, through the cameras, through radio telemetry or the live trapping. The dream would be that this population, we start to see females reproduce more frequently and we start to see better um, rates of juveniles reaching adulthood.

I think the, the dream is that everybody knows what a fisher is,

[00:45:39] Katie Perkins: Mm-hmm.

[00:45:40] Alexia Constantinou: fishers are doing better. My attached dream is that we understand more and see more porcupines and fishers out on the landscape together. My way of sort of describing what I've been learning over the past few years is just when you start to pull at one thread of one wild- one wildlife, one species starting to disappear, [00:46:00] all these other threads are going with it, and they're rooted in big changes to fire regimes and to anthropogenic change on the landscape.

So you pull at the fisher thread, inevitably for this project at least, the porcupine thread came with it. But all the other threads for communities include, oh, well, is that also affecting moose and mule deer in that way?" And definitely a, a big question for a lot of people is, "Does that affect what I eat as well?"

And so on and so forth. So I don't think that you get to pull at one wildlife species thread without seeing the whole blanket come with it and the work that we have set out for us. So the hope is that everybody knows what a fisher is, and we are able to implement some change in how people treat their habitat.

[00:46:48] Rich Weir: Yeah, I agree with, uh, with Alexia on all those points. I-- it, it would be great to see the population recover. You know, it's been kind of a steady decline, and it's getting, you know, more and more critical. And [00:47:00] so to really-- to see the, the females producing more, more fishers r-returning to areas where they've been ex-basically kind of extirpated from would be, would be really, um...

I'd, I'd be very happy to see that. It's, it's been, uh, a, a depressing few years, so to, to see the population start to, start to come back would be, uh, some great, um, great sign that, uh, we're not gonna lose them

[00:47:23] Katie Perkins: Well, Rich and Alexia, thank you for joining me. Thanks for teaching me so much about fishers, and I hope that everyone listening learned a little something about them, even if it's just the way they smell.

[00:47:33] Alexia Constantinou: Thanks so much for having us. It's always nice to talk critters

[00:47:36] Rich Weir: Thank you. It's, uh, a- as I say, always happy to talk fishers. Makes me happy

 Thanks for joining us on the Our Wild Lives Podcast. If you love today's episode, share it with a friend and hit follow so you never miss a story. Drop us a review [00:48:00] or connect with us on social media @TheWildlifeSociety. Learn more and become a member at wildlife.org/join. We'll see you next time.