Mink monitoring in Hiiumaa

The annual monitoring of the status of European mink population in Hiiumaa has revealed that the population abundance has remained stable for the last years, even though there haven’t been any additional releases to the island since 2017. Besides the fact that the island was hit by an extreme drought and the number of small mammals was critically low last year, which made it a real survival challange for the minks, we were able to catch 10 minks during the last monitoring period. And the best news – they were all wild born animals! Out of those 10 (1F, 8M, 1?), one mink was actually caught for the second time, the first time being during 2017 monitoring. This gives us some reassurance that the mink are doing fine on the island.