The View From Heifer Hill—February, 2015
A Barrelful of Woe
Not all of the calls wildlife rehabilitators
respond to involve nests of cute little orphaned
animals. We are also summoned to help adult
animals, and these are the calls I dread, for they
often involve injured, traumatized creatures
and seldom have happy outcomes. Such is the
case with the story I am about to relate, so be
forewarned, but the creature involved proved
worthy of a tribute.
The phone call came on Tuesday of this week,
and the caller reported an animal, species
unknown, with a trap on its leg, eating apples
in her front yard. When I arrived at the house,
Tony, the caller’s husband, met me out by the
road, and pointed at an upturned trash barrel
under the apple tree; the animal had been so
encumbered by the trap that Tony had been
able to catch it. When we slid a board under
the barrel’s opening and righted it. The animal
that crouched in the bottom, its paw clamped
in a trap, proved to be a fisher.
Do you imagine that the barrel held a snarling
demon-creature? If so, allow me to reorient
you: Fishers have faces that combine the
cuteness of fox kits and bear cubs—short,
pointed, foxy muzzles, rounded heads, and
erect, fuzzy ears. While I cannot know with
certainty what this poor creature thought
or felt, its face and posture were as richly
expressive as those of any animal I have
ever met, and spoke eloquently of fear and
submissiveness. Did she exhibit a tiny bit of
hope that her situation might change?
Any self-respecting wild animal would be well
within its rights to yowl, snarl, and try to bite
when someone clamps it behind the head with
a pole gripper, but the fisher just hunkered
down deeper and watched. As Tony (wearing
leather gloves) lifted the trap and began
pressing the release mechanisms, the fisher
wriggled backward—right out of the pole
gripper—but still made no effort to defend
herself.
With the trap gone, the fisher eagerly moved
into a cage positioned next to the opening of
the barrel. She moved with fluid grace, but on
three legs. I could see that the front paw had
been destroyed and that gangrene had set
in. She chittered nervously and sought an exit
while Tony and I considered her fate. He tried
to persuade me that she might make a good
education animal at Bonnyvale, or perhaps
a nice pampered, three-legged pet (yes,
she really looked that sweet). Part of wildlife
rehabilitation is making judgments about an
animal’s viability in the wild or its likely quality
of life in an educational setting. Because I have
never seen a contented carnivore in captivity,
at least not of the mammalian variety, and
because every moment the fisher spent in that
cage was one of fear and pain, I asked Tony if
he would be willing to dispatch her humanely.
He was extremely reluctant, but agreed to,
and while I climbed into my car to make myself
scarce for a few minutes, the fisher pushed up
the board covering the top of the cage and
loped her way to freedom. While I know in my
mind that this was not a good outcome for her,
my heart leapt as I saw her go, free of the trap
and free of the cage.
While I usually admire predators only
grudgingly, especially predators of porcupines,
this animal was luminous with life, and my
admiration knew no bounds.
This was not the first time I
was summoned to assist an
animal at Tony and Ellen’s.
I’ve reached my word limit,
but I promise that sometime I
will write the story about the
world’s biggest beaver and its
unfortunate predicament. That
one has an unambiguously
happy ending.