Mink tales: How to ruin a perfect day at the park office

It was a perfect, early summer, morning in every aspect. The sky was a clear and flawlessly blue, and the sun sparkled with abundant light and gentle warmth. The breeze brought forth a kind voice that was filled with soft, but wild, voices and scented enticements. The trail was just moist enough to produce silent passage: the grass not yet tall enough to dampen my trousers or soak my socks. Mosquitoes and deer flies were wonderfully absent, or, at least, completely uninterested in me. Did I mention that it was a perfect morning? The mission at hand was to appraise the breeding bird population of the park. Field species … check. Woodland species … check. Wetland species … next. The marsh was alive with sound and movement. All the expected species were there and most were showing distinct signs of breeding. Disappointedly absent were the rails, but I had a tape recording for them. I played the sora first and got no response. I played the Virginia rail next. A rush of activity hurried out of the cattails and into the lower sedges and rushes. A pretty defensive rail no doubt. The sound and associated movement stopped. I stared at the spot, and then I started pishing. (Yes, it is actually a word and, no, it is a sound and not an "activity.") Almost instantly a small, dark brown head rose up enough to peer over the low vegetation. It was not a rail, but a mink. Being the professional that I am (or at least was at the time), I said, "Well, hello there!" It cocked its head. Then I pished some more. It rose as if it was on a stick. It wasn't big, but like most weasels, it was long. It starred. I stared. I pished. The mink sunk into the greenery and rustled in a partial arc around me, never getting closer or further away. After about 10 feet it stopped and popped up its head. I guess I thought it asked me to pish again, so I did. It ducked down and curved around me to gain another angle. The pattern continued until it had completed almost two laps around me and almost 20 minutes had expired. The wonderment and honor I had of sharing time with this amazing animal started to turn into a mild fear that I was monopolizing too much of its time. I didn't want to scare it off, so next time it rose up I asked it, "Hey, have you seen any rails around?" It just cocked its head like a puppy. Then I gesticulated and went into detail. "You know, chicken-like marsh birds, you know, about this big. The one goes (I did my best sora call) and the other (Virginia rail call)?" The mink sank down again and rustled off into the cattails. "Goodbye!...and thanks!" Did I mention that it was a perfect day? I see mink every couple of years. I love watching them. They are so active, so busy and so slinky. Their chocolate brown fur has a special luster whether it is wet or dry. It looks soft and it is. In fact, it has to be. It is the fur that keeps it warm and dry. Mink are like mini-otters. They love water and eat just about any animal found in it or near it or not near it. They are carnivores and hunters supreme. But back to their fur. Like many mammals associated with water, mink have two types of hair. Long "guard" hairs give the animal its color. Upon close inspection, the fur is brown at the base and black at the tip. The black tip works with the hair's smooth surface to give the mink a glossy look. Below the guard hairs is a dense and downy underfur. By some estimates, there are some 30-40,000 individual underfur hairs per each square inch of a mink. While this outrageous number does produce incredible softness, it performs a greater trick for the mink … it keeps it warm and dry. Believing that a dense covering of hair equates to warmth is not much of a stretch, but how does it keep a semi-aquatic animal dry? The real secret is that the dense fur retains a layer of air against the skin that acts like insulation. At the same time, this air/fur layer works together to repel water. Thus, icy cold water never gets to the animal's skin. The visual beauty and softness of mink fur led it to become the fashion fur of choice. More than a half century ago, mink stoles (ironic name if there ever was one!) were all the rage. Many of these contained a series of entire mink pelts. Historically, mink were trapped for their fur. Today, it is more likely that future mink coats are raised on mink farms. The biggest problem with this is that minks are naturally solitary animals. In the non-breeding season, if wild mink meet, a fight will break out. Putting a bunch together on a farm means isolating them, kinda like private rooms for everyone. And that leads to another tale. Back in November of 2022, some person or group, decided to break into an Ohio mink farm and break out some 40,000 captive mink. While the perpetrators might have thought this was an act of kindness or conservation, it was a potential death sentence for a large quantity of the mink. Perhaps the worst-case scenario might occur if the escaped prisoners live to breed with wild mink. Weird colors, weak genes and poor immune systems will enter the local breeding population and place it at great risk of collapse. Oh, and another tale. A naturalist (not me. I swear!) once brought a litter of "baby" mink into a park office. How cute they seemed, until someone inadvertently slammed a nearby door. It was at that point that all involved were reminded that mink share commonalities with their relatives the skunks. Long before the stench wore off, the new sign on the door read "No minks in the building!" That was not a perfect summer day!