"BILLINGS, Mont. — Wildlife advocates on Tuesday urged Montana officials to ban trapping along much of the state’s border with Idaho to protect an isolated population of cat-sized predators living in old-growth forests.
Representatives of five environmental groups said in a petition to Montana wildlife commissioners that trapping is a serious threat to the Northern Rockies fisher , a fanged predator that feeds on porcupines and once ranged across at least five states.
They are now limited to an area straddling the Montana-Idaho border.
At least 100 of the animals were killed in Montana between 2002 and 2016. Idaho prohibits fisher trapping, but 86 were killed by trappers in the state accidentally in the same time period, according to a recent report from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service."
Matthew Brown reports for the Associated Press January 15, 2019.
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