"Detection survey results suggest that the population [of fishers] in the southern Sierra Nevada may be isolated from populations to the north. WE recommend that additional survey effort be focused on the southern Cascades and northern Sierra Nevada and that forests of the Sierra Nevada be managed to encourage the movement of fishers between these areas. We also recommend that descriptions of the current distribtions of uncommon carnivores be based on techniques that produce verifiable records rather than summaries of incidental sightings." P. 104

"The fisher, Martes pennanti, historically occurred in forests from British Columbia to Quebec and as far south as Tennessee, Illinois, Wyoming and central California. Although the fisher became uncommon in the east and midwest early in this century, it has recovered throughout much of its eastern range due to the regulation of trapping, the increase in forest lands due to farmland abandonment, and reintroductions. In the western United States, the fisher once occurred throughout the northern Rocky Mountains, Cascade Mountains, Coast Ranges and Sierra Nevada, but significant gaps in this distribution now occur." P. 104

"Although the fisher always has occurred in the southern Sierra Nevada, the apparent current isolation renders this population vulnerable to catastrophic events in the short term and, possibly, inbreeding depression in the long term. This population is crucial to the restoration of the fisher in California because it is the one most likely to recolonize the remainder of the Sierra Nevada, studies of remnant populations are an insufficient conservation strategy. It is more important that forests in the Sierra Nevada and southern Cascades be managed to encourage the natural dispersal of fishers into the area we currently believe is unoccupied." "P. 111