A once-extirpated animal last seen in Cuyahoga County in the 1800s has been spotted on a Cleveland Metroparks trail camera.
Over the weekend, Cleveland Metroparks announced that a fisher was filmed in January in one of the parks. The park system said that Wildlife Coordinator Andy Burmesch identified the animal after reviewing the footage.
The weasel-like animals, which are part of the mustelid family and listed as a species of special interest by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, were thought to have been rooted out or destroyed from our area more than 200 years ago. Fishers can sometimes be mistaken for mink or river otters, which are in the same family.
The animal is a predator that hunts small mammals such as mice and squirrels. They range from 2 to 4 feet long, but half their length is their tail. They average about the size of a large house cat…