APRIL 26, 2020

On the way home from my brother’s house, heading southbound on hwy. 51, I had an animal sighting that was pretty perplexing for the region. I saw the animal cross the road ahead of me as i was driving about 50mph so it’s difficult to nail down the details, but i’ll describe it to the best of my ability.
It crossed the road on 4 legs, There was nothing paranormal or cyptid about this creature just odd for the swampy region. I initially described it to my brother via text when I got home as a “skinny raccoon, but defiantly not a raccoon.” The Frame was about the length and height of a LARGE raccoon. The color seemed more solid brown, and it moved similar to a raccoon as it was running across the road in front of me. The body was skinny thought, and the head was smaller. I keep saying raccoon because that is the closest thing i have to compare it to, it also moved as a raccoon would. I been looking up swamp mammals found in Louisiana and a swamp weasel looks close but the leg(especially front legs) do not match…the critter i saw had longer legs.Also the size would of been substantially larger than a swamp weasel. The front legs moved as you would see a racoon walk. A shouldery gate (if that makes since, sort of like a bear)

After emailing the description to a friend that lives in Northern GA, he suggested what i might of saw was a fisher cat. So i looked the animal up and was shocked to see a striking resemblance to what i saw. The strange part is that the fisher cat’s range is no where near the southeast swamp of Louisiana.

The more i think i got a handle on this mystery the more confused I get. The appearance I remember it to be more like the Swamp Weasel but not in size, the size more fits the Fisher in dimension and girth. Im inclined to think it was a fisher cat i saw, but the coloration was more close to the swamp weasel aka Long-tailed W. If what i saw was a fisher it would of been a smaller one, I see they can get fairly big.

Im no zoologist but could a population of Long-tailed weasel adapt to be larger in an area rich in nutrition source. Or like wise could a fisher adapt to be smaller and lighter colored in more tropical climate?

Submitted by Chase F.