HISTORICAL HARVEST AND INCIDENTAL CAPTURE OF FISHERS IN CALIFORNIA

Recent petitions to list the fisher (Martes pennanti) under the Endang ered Species Act have brought attention to fisher conservation. Althou gh commercial trapping of fishers in California ended in 1946, summari zing the commercial harvest data can provide a historical perspective to fisher conservation and may indicate the prevalence of incidental f isher captures in traps set fur other species. We investigated the rel ationships between historical fisher harvests and the price paid for f isher pelts, number of trapping licenses sold, cost of a trapping lice nse, total number of 5 sympatric species harvested, and their pelt pri ces in California. The frequency of incidental captures was also asses sed by interviewing trappers, biologists, and wardens in California. B etween 1919-1946, relatively few fishers were legally trapped in Calif ornia (n = 462, (x) over bar = 18.5 annually), and their harvest decli ned steadily. Fisher harvests were positively related to fisher pelt p rice but were more strongly related to the number of trapping licenses sold, indicating that fishers were vulnerable to trappers in general as opposed to only those trappers specifically targeting them. We esti mated an incidental capture rate of 1 per 407 set-nights and a mortali ty-injury rate of 24% from data obtained from 5 trappers in California . Trappers are an important source of information on the distribution of fishers and their cooperation is necessary to determine the effects of incidental capture on fisher populations.