Mink - Scourge of the Countryside

Paul Gambling, Mink Project Officer for Norfolk Wildlife Trust looks at the threat posed by Mink and reflects on how FWAG and the Wildlife Trusts and planning to work together to help alleviate the problems.

Mink are amazing predators: they run at speed, leap, climb trees and fences, they can swim on and under water, diving down to 12ft while holding their breath for minutes at a time. They can crawl down small burrows, climb up to birds' nests, get into pheasant pens, dovecotes, garden ponds and roof spaces. I have seen where one made its way into a sealed barn by climbing a vertical wooden wall and ripping a hole through the overlapping wooden slats at 10ft off the ground. They thrive in most habitats in Britain and can easily survive the harshest winters we have.

In the wild, mink hunt fish, ducks, coots, moorhens, crayfish, rabbits, rats and other small mammals. On farms they can annihilate pheasants and partridges in rearing pens and impact fish stocks, often over-killing prey which cannot escape. If this were not enough, they are one of the major causes of the decline of our fastest disappearing mammal - the water vole - which is now nearing possible extinction.

In many areas, mink have wiped out entire water vole populations, with studies showing that a mink can destroy all water voles within its territory in less than one year. The water vole is now in such peril and there is such concern for its very uncertain future that legislation comes into effect this April to give them protection, at least from human factors. However, this does nothing to safeguard the water vole, or other wildlife and game, against the predations of mink.

The problem is that mink are out of balance with British ecosystems. With their abilities, it's rather like letting a wolf loose in a nursery.  It's a choice we have to make: control mink, or see game birds threatened, water voles exterminated and the balance of wildlife changed.

What can we do? Unfortunately, unlike the coypu, it is no longer practical to eradicate mink from our countryside. However, we can keep their numbers under control, low enough that they no longer cause a serious problem.

Trapping using live cage traps alone is effective but labour intensive, requiring daily checking and with no guarantee that mink are still in the trapping area.  A highly successful approach is to combine live traps with mink rafts. The rafts monitor for the presence of mink and only when mink are detected does trapping begin.

Mink rafts are floating platforms 4ft by 2ft with a central tunnel covering a clay pad. Any animal passing through the tunnel leaves its footprints in the clay, making it a simple to task to identify which animals have visited the raft. Their effectiveness relies on the innate curiosity of mink, which will investigate unusual structures in the hope of finding food. Checking rafts takes a matter of minutes every two or three weeks, so hardly impacts on other work. Once mink are detected, bank traps can be positioned on or near the raft and only then does trapping and the associated daily checks commence. This method makes for a much more cost-effective approach than trapping alone.

In parts of Eastern England, mink trapping has already been very successful, reducing mink numbers and allowing the recovery of water voles and other wildlife. Trapping projects are operating in Suffolk, middle and eastern Norfolk, northern Essex, Hertfordshire and parts of Bedfordshire.

Now, a group including FWAG, Wildlife Trusts and other conservation bodies wish to build on the existing trapping work, extend the areas covered and join up with trappers in adjacent counties and trapping areas. 

If you are interested in doing something practical about this destroyer of wildlife, it need not take up much of your time - monitoring is very easy and many trappers trap for only part of the year and only when mink are detected. Nor need it cost anything, as most projects can supply you with rafts and traps free of charge together with advice on where and when trapping is most effective.

Contact your local FWAG adviser who will be able to help, or put you in contact with one of the projects. Let's do something now about this scourge of our countryside before it is too late.

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• Mink-Scourge of the Countryside (PDF 284KB)