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‘Safe spaces’ may save the European mink Spanish researchers create an ecological island free of American mink, a fierce competitor

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sciencemag.org SCIENCE

18 AUGUST 2017 • VOL 357 ISSUE 6352

Published by AAAS

PHOTO: TIIT MARAN

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tists disagree on the role of infections in the European mink’s decline. Before the first reintroduction, in 2000 on a 100-square-kilometer island off Estonia called Hiiumaa, hunters and a trapper killed the island’s entire American mink population, the legacy of a defunct fur farm. Even then, keeping the new population alive was difficult, recalls Tiit Maran, director of the Tallinn Zoological Gardens, where the animals were bred. “They wandered too far from the river,” Maran says. “They just didn’t know where to live.” But if captive females gave birth in en-

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has support from the European Commission’s LIFE program and local governments, omewhere along the upper Aragón first tried an introduction in a wetland in the River, between the jagged peaks of Basque Country in 2008. They set traps along the Pyrenees and a hydropower dam, a river to suppress American mink numbers, conservation biologist Madis Põdra but their population later rebounded, and and his colleagues will release 10 or most of the 27 freed European minks were 12 captive-born European minks dead within 5 months. (Mustela lutreola) next week into a mink’s This time they are counting on the “mink idea of heaven: a pristine patch of Spanish raft,” developed by Jonathan Reynolds of wilderness with 150 kilometers of waterways. the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust in Põdra hopes they will start a new population Fordinbridge, U.K.: basically a floating board and help save the European mink, a critically topped by a wooden box, which holds some endangered species whose populavegetation and a little pad made tion in Spain is down to 500. of sand and clay. The pad records But in an ironic twist, protectfootprints when a mink swimming ing the furry, dark-brown carin the river climbs onto the raft; nivore requires killing its main when tracks are found, the pad can competitor, the equally winsome be replaced with a trap. The rafts, American mink (Neovison vison). 300 of which have been deployed, A similar reintroduction effort hold little interest for European a decade ago flopped because it minks but are irresistible to Amerfailed to root out the American ican minks. “We don’t know why mink population; this time the they like it so much,” Põdra says. Spanish team is betting on an “It actually works wonderfully.” elaborate system of floating traps Along with the dozen or so to capture them. animals to be released next week Elsewhere in Europe, too, realong the Aragón, Põdra and his introduced European minks live colleagues plan to free another in such ecological safe spaces. seven or eight animals, also bred in “The European mink is always captivity, along the river Leizarán, going to be a managed species some 140 kilometers to the northbecause it looks impossible at the west, to give a small existing popumoment to completely get rid of European mink pups bred at the Tallinn Zoological Gardens have been released lation there a boost. American minks,” says Põdra, on Hiiumaa Island in Estonia since 2000. Travis Livieri, a conservawho’s with the European Mink tion biologist with Prairie WildAssociation in Barcelona, Spain. closures right by the river, his team found, life Research in Wellington, Colorado, European mink were widespread a centhe pups learned where home was. Hiiumaa lauds the effort. “They’ve a pretty good tury ago, living along rivers and streams now has a thriving population of at least handle on the situation in Europe,” says and preying on voles, amphibians, crayfish, 100 animals. The team hopes to turn Livieri, who predicts that European minks and fish. Today, only a few thousand remain the neighboring island of Saaremaa, alwill survive for “thousands of years.” in Spain, France, and the Danube delta. In most three times bigger, into the next But he says the teams should also start colRussia, sightings have become so rare that mink haven. lecting and freezing European minks’ semen. most scientists think the species is on the Another refuge is in Germany. Releases Livieri is involved in the reintroduction of the brink of extinction there. began around Steinhuder Meer, a large black-footed ferret on North American praiDisappearing habitats and hunting partly lake in Lower Saxony, in 2010. The popuries, which began when only 18 wild individuexplain the decline, but the American mink, lation seems to be thriving, say Eva Lüers als were left. Previously stored semen—along a distant cousin that looks very similar but and Thomas Brandt, two researchers at with artificial insemination—has proved lacks the European species’s iconic white the Steinhuder Meer Ecological Proteccrucial for restoring genetic diversity, Livieri nose, has done by far the most damage. First tion Station, which runs the program; in says. Although the European mink’s situation imported by fur farmers for their superior 2015, a camera trap managed to snap the isn’t that dire, and artificial insemination pelt in the 1920s, the animals escaped and first picture of a litter of European minks. has never been done with the species, Põdra thrived in the wild. Bigger, more adaptable, American minks live in Germany, but not agrees that’s a good idea. j and more aggressive toward other predaaround the lake, and the group is monitortors, they simply drove out the native species. ing closely for any signs of an invasion. Kata Karáth is a freelance journalist in They also brought new diseases, but scienThe European Mink Association, which Dunaföldvár, Hungary. By Kata Karáth

'Safe spaces' may save the European mink Kata Karáth

Science 357 (6352), 636. DOI: 10.1126/science.357.6352.636

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/357/6352/636

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