d en Wo Jeff orff limit the fisher's expansion because of its literature-cited dependency on substantial acreage of contiguous coniferous forestland. That didn't happen, Lovallo said. "They are colonizing small deciduous woodlots in some areas," he explained. "The availability and amount of woody debris - logs and brush - on the forest floor seem to be more important than of what the canopy is comprised." Back when fishers were reintroduced, reported fisher observations numbered about 60 or so a year. Today, reports annually exceed 1,000. In fact, the agency's wildlife conservation officers believe fisher populations are either established, stable or increasing in about 50 of the state's 67 counties. Although Pennsylvania's fisher reintroduction project was fueled by the release of 190 fishers beginning in 1994, it's now apparent the state's southwestern counties were populated by fisher immi12 grants that slipped over the Mason-Dixon Line from West Virginia, where 23 fishers were released in 1969. When is undocumented. But their genealogy offers plenty of proof. IUP used DNA fingerprinting to sort out whether the fishers taken in fieldwork were progeny of West Virginia or Pennsylvania releases. The university concluded that the sizeable territory currently inhabited by fishers in the state's southwestern counties was colonized by descendants