Fishers aren’t known as an urban adapted species. They tend to avoid our built up landscapes and prefer landscapes of mature forests comprised of appropriate denning habitat such as old trees with cavities and lots of course woody debris (think of big piles of dead branches and fallen logs), characteristics not usually found in urban forests. Because of this Fishers avoid our cities… or so we thought.

Sage Raymond is a researcher who studies urban adapted Coyotes in Edmonton. While out checking some trail cams intended to catch Coyotes on the landscape, she happened across a Fisher trail in the snow, in a small wooded area along the North Saskatchewan River. Later confirmed with footage from one of the remote cameras, Sage realized that this was a very unusual circumstance. Thankfully she wrote a paper about it and I had to read it, and, again, thankfully, she agreed to talk about her findings on the show. There is a link to the paper below.

To learn more:
Ep. 159 : Tracking Urban Adapted Coyote Ecologies with Sage Raymond
Sage Raymond’s Research Gate profile
Sage Raymond’s instagram
Fisher Use of an Ecological Corridor Near the City Center of Edmonton, Canada, A City of Over One Million People by Sage Raymond and Colleen Cassady St. Clair. Urban Naturalist, No. 77 (2025).

Pictorial Guide of Important Fisher Habitat Structures in British Columbia (pdf)