Despite a striking resemblance to the titular character of the TV series ALF, fishers in Simcoe are probably not responsible for a number of missing cats across the region.

It’s likely a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Fishers, part of the weasel family, resemble a stumpy cross between a bear and a raccoon.

“They certainly are capable of (eating cats),” said Brent Shirley, a management biologist for the Ministry of Natural Resources. Despite high-level predator status, the region offers a wide variety of more appealing fare including snowshoe hares, rabbits, mice, voles, in addition to fruits and mushrooms. The fisher is also one of the few predators capable of dining on porcupine, but despite the name, rarely eats fish.

There are parts of Ontario where forest cover is actually increasing. We see more fishers now than we would have seen in the 1980s

“We have done various types of studies with fishers, including diet studies, but we have not observed fishers eating cats,” said Jeff Bowman, a research scientist for the MNRF, but said there is some anecdotal evidence.

Bowman said it was no coincidence there are more sightings, in recent years the fisher population has been on the uptick.

“They were a species distributed all the way through Ontario and down through the Great Lakes states,” said Bowman.

Increased forestry and agricultural activity reduced the fisher habitat, forest, in Ontario to Algonquin Park and areas north of Lake Huron by the 1930s. The population began to recover in the 1970s and 1980s with improved management.

Conditions in Simcoe are increasingly more welcoming to fishers.

“There are parts of Ontario where forest cover is actually increasing,” said Bowman, “We see more fishers now than we would have seen in the 1980s.”