Today a fantastic news was received by the Foundation Lutreola.  The European mink reintroduction project initiated in 2010 in Steinhuuder Meer (in Lower-Saxony, Germany) reached to a very important milestone. A trail-camera image proved the very first breeding of the European mink the wild there. As it can be seen in the photo – female is carrying a pup. This is a fantastic reward for all the hard and dedicated work our collaegues in the Ecological Conservation Station at Steinhuuder Meer have been doing all these years. Foundation Lutreola and Tallinn Zoo congratulate our colleaguase for this success!

The Lower-Saxony and the Steinhuuder Meer Conservaiton Station have very good reasons to be proud of – THEY HAVE DONE IT!!!!

The press release in German can be found here:  2015-Presseinfo Nerz – Fortpflanzungsnachweis

During last night the first birth European mink took place in 2015. The female, Salme, delivered young. We do not know how many, as the female needs to be left fully undisturbed for 10 days minimum. Only after that we can check the number and sex of these new-borns.

This marks the start of the birth-period in this spring. Next birth is expected during coming night.

The mating season 2015 was pretty successful. The planned number of females was mated:

• 14 females were mated for genetic management of the captive population,
• four females were mated for release and were housed into the pre-release enclosures in Tallinn Zoo research lab,
• three females were mated for pre-release enclosures in Hiiumaa Island. These were transported to the island last week.

It seems that we will have interesting mink year.