Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Wildlife Management How undesirable are mink to my pond ecosystem?

I took off today to have my BG and RES delivered and thought I would do some bush hogging.I was mowing a stand of grass approximately 20yds from the pond and I jumped up a shiny black mink about 2ft long.The mink darted into the pond like its butt was on fire.
I have read that mink will pillage and plunder backyard fish ponds but will a few mink have much of a negative impact on a farm pond?

I would prefer a mink over a muskrat. They do eat fish, however.

They also eat muskrats!

Muskrats are a preferred forage item for Mink, which is the reason I like them around. Further, they are amazingly cool critters - and although rare to see them, I like knowing they're around patrolling for Skrats.

I had a mink clean out cages of fish I wintered over - but even that didn't change my feelings towards them. I have learned the importance of tying my cage lids down over the winter months, however.

I have seen no evidence that mink are impacting my fishery to any degree over the past 9 years - only one fish which appeared to be mink casualty was a smallish SMB with everything eaten but the head about 6 years ago.

Otters, pelicans, cormorants are a different story, but Mink are welcome in my pond.

I have always thought mink were cool also.I did not know that they would dive underwater.I see a lot of mink around this area.There was a guy about 1.5 miles away that used to raise mink and I talked to his old neighbor which said the mink farmer became frustrated when fur prices dropped so we opened his cages and let his mink loose.
I will leave the mink alone.I have not seen any muskrats yet and I hope I do not.I bit the bullet and added rip rap the full length of my dam and 6ft below full pool to discourage muskrats from making my dam look like swiss cheese.

My neighbor loves to trap, but I am happy to see mink to help with my healthy muskrat population. He trapped dozens of the rats last year, but they need to be trapped more heavily this year to relieve pressure on my poor reeds.

I'd prefer to see a mink vs. a muskrat in my pond any day.

RAH, good luck getting him to trap 'rats this year. Forecasts are saying $2-$4 with some select few @ $5.

FWIW When I trapped rats in the mid 70's the price was $7 unskinned. I was told my rats were prime from virgin trapping area. Good money back then. My fur guy only gave an extra 50 cents if you skinned and stretched yourself. His rationale was too many people screwed up the pelt skinning. A male mink was $40. Huge money back then.

Edit: Just a few more data points...coons were a dollar a pound and a big opossum would get you $1.50 (sold these to the Russians I was told for glove liners).

Edit Edit: I gotta throw this in. I took a rat out of a trap and tossed it up on the shore. Finished checking the rest of the traps and went back to pick it up. Our dog was happily chewing away. I got half a rat but took it to the fur guy and he gave me $3! Said he could use it for patch fur!

Dogs LOVE to eat muskrats. Seen it many times.

Bill, latter part of the '70's. A friend and I decided to partner up, pool our resources and go like heck trapping for a week. What we did then, I couldn't do now, but we trapped more 'rats than we had stretchers for - it took us a long time to get 'em all dried. We skinned and froze fur. It was a LONG, hard week we broke the 1,000 'rat mark. We just concentrated on 'rats, nothing else. IIRC, we caught around 10 mink in the conibears that were set for 'rats.

He knew different areas to trap than I did, we hit an area really hard, and moved the traps every other day or so.

I could skin a 'rat in less than a minute after that season.

He is retired and I think he just does it mostly for fun. I am lucky to have him as a neighbor for many reasons.

Wow! 100 rats was a great week for me. I only had 11 110s. I would check them early evening, midnight and dawn each day.

Great to control Rats but if you raise chickens they can do a "control" on them too .
They are hard to keep out of a coop and kill until nothings left to kill.
Luckily I don't have them here but have a lot of online chicken breeding friends that do.

Bill, between the two of us we had close to 500 110's.

An electric fence with wires spaced not too far apart and really close to the ground, plus another one about 24" up off the ground around the outside of a coop deters a lot of critters.

To be honest I could hardly sleep last night worrying about the mink. I am afraid my new 3" RES might kill them all!!!

One winter at my dad's old pond I watched a single mink through a spotting scope catch and eat five small LMB in an hours time. There was patchy ice on the pond at the time, it would dive through a hole then get back on the ice and eat a LMB. The mink then spotted a muskrat on the far side of the pond up on the ice and started stalking it. The muskrat headed back into the water before the mink got close so it wasn't clear how that ended.

Years ago I had pier sections stacked next to the biggest pond. An animal came out from under the pier, which I initially I though was a woodchuck. After A closer look I realized it was a huge mink. Not long after that I found him flattened on the nearby highway.

When we moved the pier sections to install them, I found a huge pile of scales, and fish skins underneath.

Saw one by the trout pond once. Immediately got the shotgun and dispatched it.

Short of comercial ponds or super small ponds and people trying to grow huge bg, not much of a problem as a consensus, fun to watch, and more fun to trap.