A mysterious creature darted across the street in front of a police officer’s car in the Bronx, intriguing him enough to stop and take a picture.
He later learned the
mysterious creature was a fisher, a type of weasel, DNA Info said.
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The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences identified the creature, and said it wasn’t usually found in New York City.
Roland Kays, director of the biodiversity lab at the North Carolina museum,
wrote a blog about the sighting, and said the carnivorous fishers have recently been found in suburban areas, climbing trees to hunt squirrels.
Kays said Fishers used to live in Manhattan when settlers first moved in, but they disappeared because their valuable fur made them trapping targets. Gradually, they were reduced to a small population living in the Adirondacks, but as trapping was banned, they recovered.
The nocturnal animals pose little threat to people, but Kays speculated that if they develop a taste for the many rats running in New York City, they could "make a nice living" there. And he said there’s very little evidence of the idea that they kill cats, which has been batted around.
The animals have big feet and claws, which they use to climb trees and kill prey, and they have no natural predators.
“It’s going to be interesting to see if they could provide the rat control that’s so badly needed in the city,” Kays speculated on a YouTube video about the Bronx fisher.
Derek Lenart, the police officer who snapped the photo, told DNA Info that it was fun to find an unusual animal in the city.
"Down there, I wouldn’t expect to see some new form of wildlife," he said.
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