Trapping Mink

[EDDIE B 3,118]

1 hour ago, W. Katchum said:

In this day an age you can buy anything, bet you can buy a mink. Might take a while an a bit of bending the truth but I’m sure you could get one if really wanted, or do what you gonna do I sure that Joseph Carter has trained adults from wild or atleast adults from farm, won’t be easy an you’ll get sore hands, too much of a mess about for me, I’ll stick with me ferrets

O yea, he did alright, but he realised there was MUCH easier ways to do it lol

 

[EDDIE B 3,118]

3 minutes ago, Welsh_red said:

If your having a brick/block shed i would have the internal walls rendered or at least battern then ply . Ive done the ply option on my ferret shed . My ferrets can climb the old brick wall so they will need smooth surfaces to stop it climbing .

This is what ive got in my ferret shed , excuse the mess ive been sorting out my sheds and at the minute its a store room . I can lock myself in there with the mesh door , let the ferrets out running around me and they cant get out or climb . Ive also got a flap that lifts up on the mesh so that ferrets cant climb the mesh further than that . 

If you had a wild mink i would assume you will need better than this as my ferrets would only try to get out out of exquisitivness unlike a wild mink that would want get get out back to freedom 

That's a very important aspect to stop them getting out. Even a well tamed mink will be gone, never to be seen again, if they get out

[Welsh_red 4,298]

3 minutes ago, EDDIE B said:

That's a very important aspect to stop them getting out. Even a well tamed mink will be gone, never to be seen again, if they get out

And if it does get out and kills next doors chickens your in the shit aswell

[james-t 5]

Thank you all the advice I'll definitely line with plywood and the door is going to be like those used on aviary locking one before opening the second with a polycarbonate sheet over the mesh so no grip at all on both doors. 

Luckily no one too close to me has chickens. 

If it ever did get out it probably wouldn't be too far got a stream close by so hopefully would just be there if there isn't any already. 

 

[chrisjpainter 10]

I wouldn't say 100% but...I'm 99% sure you won't be granted a licence (below) for what you have in mind. You'll fall foul on several areas of the application form, perhaps most notably the intended purpose. Studying the behaviour will be tough to sell, as you'll have to provide them with a shed load of data that can be analysed for them to see your project as having scientific merit. You could try under 'other' reasons, but these are 'exceptional' and almost never granted. I doubt the desire to train one would cover it. The licence isn't for the life of the animal, or a permanent fixture, I'm fairly sure it has to be finite and you have to provide a closing date for your project.

If you've not got specific qualifications or experience that'll be another black mark against it and if you're a first time applicant, they're even more reticent to grant applications. There's also this line buried in the application that's not immediately apparent but is important:

'A person with specific skills and knowledge of the species concerned, such as a consultant ecologist, must be appointed to assist in the preparation and the delivery of the proposals that ensure the species protection requirements can be met.'

It's a minefield really and to do it to the satisfaction of NE on a first time application as an independent is almost impossible. 

Like I said, I'm not 100% sure you wouldn't get one, but there is an awful lot of work you'd have to do in data collection, project formulation location security and goal planning that would have to go in to give your application even the faintest hope of success - and even then, they're likely to say no. Your best (perhaps only?) bet is to get together with an organisation that's doing scientific research into them and maybe find a way to piggy back onto it. You're more likely to get success if you have the weight of both scientific research and display for the purposes of education as viable reasons for the licence. 

NE are hot on this stuff for a reason. It stops any crazy idiot thinking he can have a bash at keeping a wild animal and it all going pear shaped when it rips their face off. The downside is that some people who would be entirely sensible and responsible in their actions are perhaps unfairly restricted, but even with animals under the Destructive Imported Animals Act 1932 (this is what covers mink, not the dangerous animals act), animal welfare trumps everything. 

Oh and they're also little *******. If they were humans, they'd probably hold you up at knife point and mug you. Then once you'd handed over all you've got, they'd stab you anyway, just because they could. They'd probably walk off in your own shoes, too.

A04-keep-non-native-animals.pdf (publishing.service.gov.uk)

[EDDIE B 3,118]

Yea, what he said.

 

Or you could always play dumb, and chance it.  

[BEARINATOR 2,825]

Need 2 locked doors for dwa, vets on standby that specialise in them plus insurance so for mink it wouldn’t be worth it

[EDDIE B 3,118]

This auld boll*x "rescued" some squirrel kits. Just "rescue" a mink kit

 

[cragman 2,631]

The only mink I like to see are dead ones. They decimate the wildlife in rivers, on the river banks and in the countryside. Go the polecat/ferret cross way if you insist on this kind of project, great rabbiters and ratters, wick and tough little feckers. I know a guy who has this cross mustelid and has kept them years. Not for the faint hearted though. 

[james-t 5]

4 hours ago, EDDIE B said:

Yea, what he said.

 

Or you could always play dumb, and chance it.  

Thought it was a odd looking ferret . 

 

I'm going to back off this while doing more research into wildlife organisations studying them already hopefully get some where with that. 

Thank you all very much for your input. 

[Welsh_red 4,298]

1 hour ago, james-t said:

Thought it was a odd looking ferret . 

 

I'm going to back off this while doing more research into wildlife organisations studying them already hopefully get some where with that. 

Thank you all very much for your input. 

For my curiousty update your progress.  Ive got no interest in keeping a mink but interested in where u get with this

[james-t 5]

Hey thought I'd update I've decided not to follow through with this idea of trying to train/study mink in an enclosure more than happy with my ferrets. 

[wilbur foxhound 480]

James I think you should crack on with the idea,I will give you my full support as long as you post the pictures of the damage to your hands ,lol,I spoke with an old lad one day who picked one up years ago it was in a fenn trap and he thought it was dead until he picked it up,he said son it went up and down my fingers like someone playing a mouth organ,I have every confidence in you,lol,wf

Edited May 14, 2022 by wilbur foxhound
Spelling error

[james-t 5]

I'm good thanks I like my fingers lol 

[DIDO.1 20,804]

I hate killing mink, just seems a waste.