There’s a mink in my back garden, what to do?

[tearingmyhearout242]

I live in an area not far from where there used to be a mink farm years ago. It got shut down but many escaped/were let loose and it’s not unheard of to see minks in the local area.

The past week I’ve been waking up and finding remains of dead rodents in the garden. Often there isn’t much left. I thought maybe it was a local cat. Except yesterday evening I saw something black and slinky run across the garden. Having seen a mink in a local park before I recognised it as a mink.

DH went wandering around the garden and found a burrow, it goes underneath the shed. He left an old unused camera there overnight and we did in fact catch footage of it leaving the burrow and going back in later. It even sniffed the camera. It’s adorable, but we can’t just leave it when they are so dangerous to natural wildlife.

DH wants to try and catch it himself. But there don’t seem to be any mink sanctuaries etc we could send it to. I assume due to them being an invasive species. I just want to get an exterminator in to get rid of it humanely ASAP, especially as we are trying to move. I’m sick of all of the dead rodents.

[quote Okeydoky]@ClariceQuiff because mink is an invasive species if a mink came into the RSPCA's care it would be put down.[/quote]
Fair enough - I was just saying what I'd do in the circumstances. We only ever get foxes in our garden and they don't seem to cause any trouble so we leave them alone and enjoy watching them.

Where in the uk are you OP? If you're in Scotland, we have an invasive species website where you can report it.

I bet you guys have never even seen a cow in real life, either.

I've talked to a few.

I live literally across the street from a farm. I'm looking at the fields as we speak. I haven't seen a rat in the 7 years that I've lived here but I've no doubt that they're close by, mink or no mink.

I live in the country and we're surrounded by fields. Killing it is wrong, it's in its own environment, people are the incomers. If it becomes a regular and worrying visitor then the rspca is the first port of call I suppose. Hopefully you'll be able to co exist though, you get on with your life and the mink can get on with his/her life side by side.

Not sure what to do about the mink, but rodents are absolutely everywhere. In fact they are probably just as prevalent in cities/suburbs as they are in the countryside.

It’s a quandary op, as like you say they are very destructive. I’m not sure I could kill it though, but that’s just me.

The mink is NOT in its own environment. It’s a non native invasive species that decimates our native wildlife.

Best thing for all the other creatures to have someone in and humanely dispatch it.

@overitall1

Minks are the only animal which kills for sport. Not for food. Not for fear. For sport.

Apart from humans presumably?

I can think of several animals who kill for sport. My DCat being one.

The mink is NOT in its own environment. It’s a non native invasive species that decimates our native wildlife

A species that decimates our native wildlife? So rather like humans then?

I love all the fretting over the damage mink supposedly do when we're by far the most destructive species on the planet.

What @bringmelaughter said. Just highlighting the useful post in with lots of very uninformed nonsense.

The OP sought advice for the correct thing to do, not lots of emotional responses with little understanding that protocols for mink exist for a reason

We had a mink nearby, it killed a neighbours chickens (caught on camera) over the course of a week. Took them away one by one. Mink are small and cute but fierce and have huge appetites.

It was killing all the local waterfowl (canal) as well, the Canal and River Trust ended up trapping it, we assume to have it humanely killed but they wouldn't confirm.

In Scotland there is a dedicated Web page for reporting mink.

Elsewhere I would contact these groups and ask for their advice:
RSPCA
RSPB
Local wildlife Trust (google should bring up contact info)
Canal/River wildlife Trust- canalrivertrust.org.uk/enjoy-the-waterways/canal-and-river-wildlife/the-rogues-gallery-of-invasive-species/american-mink

I'd leave it alone

@overitall1

Minks are the only animal which kills for sport. Not for food. Not for fear. For sport.

Apart from humans presumably?

And cats.

@hennaoj

Mink aren't the only animals that kill for sport, cats do and a fox in a hen house certainly will. They can actually be fantastic pets, rather like ferrets but like any wild animal when cornered they will defend themselves. Leave it alone, the RSPCA will only kill it and killing a single Mink won't make a much of a dent on the local Mink population anyway.

How many times does it need saying? Foxes DO NOT kill for fun. Yes they will kill all the chickens in the hen house so they can cache them and have them at a later date. This is true for most animals that 'overkill'.

Human beings kill for fun, and the cats we domesticated, so that is our fault too. The unbalance of nature is ALWAYS human beings' fault.

I'd be inclined to leave the poor thing to live it's life out OP, I think they only live a few years anyway.

What @bringmelaughter said. Just highlighting the useful post in with lots of very uninformed nonsense.

Nonsense is pretending to give a shit about the supposed damage to wildlife and the environment caused by a lone mink when humans are consuming large quantities of meat, polluting the environment with cars, killing wildlife with those cars, tearing up the environment to build more homes and polluting the world with a ton of unnecessary plastic products.

@ArgonNeon Sorry that comment wasn’t aimed at you. You make a valid point. It’s those who think my garden must be a rat infested hovel. You could put a mink in any back garden in the country and it’d come back with food.

My neighbour has chickens. We get birds nests nearby. I don’t disagree it’s unfair that the mink faces this fate. It’s our fault it’s in this habitat, it’s just living it’s life. But I have to weigh it up against 1 mink life/potentially hundreds of local birds and potentially chickens.

Also highlighting the advice @bringmelaughter gave. There are some odd comments on here.

Minks are the only animal which kills for sport. Not for food. Not for fear. For sport.

🤣🤣 yeah any species that kills for sport should be eradicated!

we don't talk about cats! We don't talk about humans!

Leave it alone.

@ScrambledSmegs

That reminds me actually that we’re not far from a major canal, with a river a short walk away that joins it.

There are lots of ducks and swans about.

It’s basically a rescue mink which escaped a cruel fate at the mink farm. I would leave it be.

I live in the countryside, there are rats and mice everywhere, also moles. Obviously I don't see them much (although I have) but no doubt I would if a mink lived in my garden.

Poor animals. It might be non native/invasive but remember how they got here and why.
Surely there’s a sanctuary somewhere they’re not here through choice, we shouldn’t keep on killing animals like they don’t matter.

If we could just take it to a sanctuary I absolutely would. I don’t WANT to kill it. But there don’t seem to be any sanctuaries at all. So it’s a toss-up between just leaving it to it or getting an exterminator.

DH wants to catch it first and foremost and then figure out what to do with it.

I’ll ring RSPCA tomorrow.

I mean, with no sanctuaries around, where will it go?

DH is talking about how he’ll look online for individuals that have them as pets or something to give it to. I think that’s just putting it at more risk though.