Greene: Mystery Scat

Print More
MP3

(Host) Climate change has many species of animals on the move. This
winter, commentator Stephanie Greene, a writer who lives on the family
farm in Windham County, has discovered that one of these newcomers may
have visited her bee yard.

(Greene) It all started when I found an impressive pile of scat on top of my honey frames.

During
the fall honey harvest, even the most assiduous human spinning a
centrifuge can’t get all the honey out of the combs. And since a single
bee can expect to produce only 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in her entire
lifetime, I think it’s only fair they should be allowed the drippings
left over from the honey harvest.

So, I’d left the honey comb
frames out in the weather, uncovered, for the bees to clean – and some
animal had obviously been trying to get at the remaining honey. Finally
in frustration I guess, it had left this present sitting there on top of
the frames. It was too weird not to document, so I took a picture and
sent it to Rich Watkin, our local game warden.

We keep our
beehives in an old tennis court to protect them from bears, so the
visiting animal had to be on the small side. Watkin’s verdict, on
viewing the photo, was that it was either a fisher cat or a possum. I
was stunned. Possums in Vermont? Fishers, those velociraptors in fur –
eating honey?

Fishers I’ve seen around, but I’ve yet to see a
possum at our altitude. In fact, it was hard to believe these marsupials
could thrive in a Vermont winter with their bald tails and long ears.

Well,
"thrive" might actually be too strong a word, says Bill Kilpatrick, UVM
professor of biology, for possums endure frostbite pretty regularly,
especially on their ears. And that hasn’t seemed to slow their northward
march. As Vermont becomes more suburban, apparently the quantity and
quality of our garbage has inspired these carrion-loving omnivores to
move north. This migration has been going on over the past 25 years or
so. In 2000 there were even possum sightings in Montreal.

On the
other hand, the fisher – second largest of the weasel family (after the
river otter) – is native to Vermont. Like many other fur bearing
animals in the northeast, they were all but wiped out by over-trapping
in the early 20th century. Reintroduced in the ‘40’s to control the
burgeoning porcupine population, fishers have been thriving here ever
since. They’re subject to much demonizing and are often blamed for
disappearing pets (unfairly, according to Watkin).

Fishers can
be up to four feet long, are excellent climbers and swimmers, can jump
seven feet, run 15 mph and have a truly blood curdling scream. It’s a
little hard to picture such a fearsome beast sitting down like Winnie
the Pooh to enjoy honey, but Watkin assures me they’re omnivorous.

So
which was it, a possum or a fisher? Well, without getting too graphic, a
close inspection of the mystery scat indicated my exasperated visitor
was… a fisher with a sweet tooth.

Comments are closed.