Over the years, I've taken hundreds of mink in all types of habitats, and with all kinds of traps. Mink have been a valued part of the annual harvest in a variety of locations. Certainly, a valuable furbearer to me.


Here's a glossy young female just checking me out.



This is a big adult male in July. Note the eartag.



The mink populations were extraordinarily high among the southeast Alaska islands.



My son, Valya, and I would annually catch more than 100 mink in December in SE Alaska.



This is a radio-collar I used in central Idaho mink back in the 1970s to find out home ranges of the mink.



I found that implant transmitters (into the gut cavity) worked much better than collars for following the mink.


Hope you enjoy this week's Photo Phriday images.
Jack

This is my favorite mink. My little buddy's daughter got this one. A 4 pounder, and I think it was her first one. I got it mounted for her......jk

Thanks for posting Jack used to run long lines for mink 150-200 miles when mink were good prices.... bucks $50 a head and females $25 a head. Lots of miles and memories of various creeks, rivers, lakes.

Gulp. What was the home range you found if mink in your study ? I wonder if it varies from state to the home ranges ? Marty

Mink home ranges vary tremendously depending on habitat quality. I always preferred to express home ranges in terms of miles of shoreline rather than square areas (sq. miles, hectares, acres, etc). Generally, adult males used 1.5 to 3.5 linear miles and adult females used 0.3 to 1.9 linear miles. Juveniles used much less, except during dispersals. I'm sure it varies state-to-state, and habitat-to-habitat.

Beautiful pics. The ear tag is interesting. Lots of questions. When applied? How was mink originally captured? Link to any studies?

I've always loved pursuing mink and once I mastered the bottom edge set the chase only became stronger. Thought I was catching a few extra large mink til I was selling fur at Wiebkes in La Crosse one day and Dan asked me if I'd like to see some big mink. Sure . . .

A truck had just backed up out back and they were off loading whioe frozen Red River mink. Unreal. They looked like small otter.

The home ranges you gave are also very interesting. Quite a few mink down here in the Lower Wisconsin River valley. Would love to know what the density is here.

Good stuff, thanks for posting.

Nice shots and info, Jack. Mink sometimes visit here too. Lots of water around for them. Hippie caught a dandy years ago , and sent it to me . The first two pics are portraits of that one.

What is a mink’s prime predator. I used to trap quite a few mink. I have not seen a mink or mink track in the past six or eight years. I live in an area where tens of thousands of acres of land are federally protected - so I dont really think it is habitat change. We have lots of coons, otters, coyotes, gators, and bobcats

I originally used the Monel metal ear tags. Got away from that and went to plastic tags; less problematic in freezing weather. Eartags were applied at all times of year.

I captured mink in Tomahawk cage traps or barrel traps. For reference, see the mink chapter I co-wrote in "Wild Furbearer Management and Conservation in North America", published by Ontario, Canada (The "Fur Bible").

The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in western Alaska has a giant race of mink also. Pretty much all the ranched mink in the world have these genetics, making them much bigger than typical wild mink. The northeast coast (Maine, Nova Scotia, PEI, etc) used to have a giant species of mink that is now extinct. "Sea Mink"

Jack

Sharon -

Many thanks for contributing your artwork to this thread...always appreciated. They're beautiful!

Jack

The Dusty dog was a mink hunter. This mink came by the house one morning dragging a cotton tail rabbit. The dog was sleeping so I called him and turned him out. If a mink could not get to a hole or water it had no chance.

This is a Yukon/Kuskokwim mink. Was the best in the world when mink was king. I have had mink ranchers ask me to live catch some for them.

Looks big
i believe a lot of the ranch mink have that strain in their genetics.
I remember speaking with "Doc" from NY at the FHA convention years ago. He got a few to ranch.Not sure if it was those or Mackenzie river mink,one of the two..
You can see why beaver houses,old or active are good places for mink sets.

This one was living under the bait shed.I squeeked him out for a pic.
Notice he is looking up for the source of the sqeeky bird in distress,lol.



I decided to cage him and re locate him to a safe place out on the trapline-he got a pass that year anyway.

Where can someone get a copy of the book you mentioned?

https://www.amazon.com/Furbearer-Management-Conservation-North-America/dp/0774393653

Gonna be a used copy. Ontario TA used to have it available on CD but not sure they do any longer. Book was out of print for quite a while

Within the last couple weeks a new chapter has been put together for inclusion in the above book. It is.......... Survey and Monitoring Methods for Furbearers,


It can be downloaded at this link;

https://www.wildlifeecology.org/fur_book_15furmonitoing.html

Best place is at the library. They are prohibitively expensive, but worth every nickel. "Wild Furbearer Management and Conservation in North America" was first published in 1987 by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. It is the "Bible" when one is interested in furbearers. I don't know what it is currently selling for, but I imagine several hundred dollars.

I see Abebooks has a copy for $367.99 for a "used" copy.

Jack

Great pictures. Great thread Mr. Gulo.
Thanks to everyone for sharing.
Mac

Was fishing a small river once. About 40 ft wide or so. Was wading in about knee deep water. Saw a mink on the other shore. Watched him for about 5 minutes running back and forth on the bank. He was looking for something it seemed.
Eventually he walked up to the waters edge, peered into the water then jumped in.
I thought he would pop up in a couple of seconds.
Nope, I looked down and up stream for about a good minute.
I had a good view of the river and was sure he didn't come back up.
Musta had a hole in the bank or something I figured.
All of a sudden he pops up about 5 ft downstream from where I was standing and was heading right at me.
Scared the daylights out of me, I waved a arm and yelled at him, last thing I wanted was a mink crawling on me.
He went back down and I never saw him again.