The Mink

Another fun loving creature, the mink can often be found on pebble beaches of the Johnstone Strait, foraging for food. These semi aquatic mammals live in dens or hollow logs and have even been found under docks or piers.

Weighing in at a hefty ½ kg to 1 kg (1-2 pounds) and measuring about ½ metre (2 ft ), minks live to 8 to 10 years of age unless eaten by one if it’s natural predators bald eagles and owls. Humans used to hunt them for their prized fur but today minks are farmed rather than hunted.

The mink has a gestation period of a little more than a month, and like a lot of it’s close relatives, has a process called delayed implantation, where the embryo enters a dormant state until favorable environmental conditions allow the gestation period to begin. Birth usually occurs in the spring and the young mink stay with their mother until the fall when they become independent. Males have very little to do with caring for their young and often do not hang around for long after reproducing.

Curiously, the mink is very cat like, in the sense that they are extremely territorial, marking their territories with scent and often purr when happy.