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Jul

17

2007
 
 

Monitoring motions: which is best?



Footprints are more reliable indicators of mink than droppings, and less messy too Yeah. We're not so crazy about you either.American mink Mustela vison are nocturnal, elusive and devastating to European wildlife. Their secretive habits also make them difficult to monitor and most studies to date have relied on the field biologist’s favorite medium – dung – to assess how many are out there violating the local riverside. A better method, according to Oxford University biologist Lauren Harrington and colleagues, is to use “tracking rafts” – small floating platforms containing a moist clay plate to capture the mischievous mustelid’s footprints. A tasty sardine or chunk of rabbit serve as a lure. Reporting their results in the European Journal of Wildlife Research, the scientists compared the results from tracking rafts with those of a more traditional dropping count. The rafts provide a more consistent picture of mink numbers throughout the year. Now we can count them, we just need a way to get rid of them! Source: Harrington LA, Harrington AL & Macdonald DW (2007) Estimating the abundance of American mink Mustela vison on lowland rivers: evaluation and comparison of two techniques. European Journal of Wildlife Research DOI: 10.1007/s10344-007-0114-2 Related stories in Conservation magazine: Aliens Among Us | Sniffing With Precision Image © John Pitcher

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