Helen showed us how a mink raft works as we are planning to set some of these this summer in monitoring mode to see what mink are present in our three TWCP rivers. They might give us some information that we cannot pick up by tracks on sandy banks etc. Mink rafts were devised by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust as a practical and efficient means of eradicating mink. They are set at strategic points along main rivers and watercourses in monitoring mode, when any animal getting on to the raft leaves their footprints in a pad of wet clay. This pad is for demonstration purposes, and has dried out, but shows what mink tracks look like. Apparently, the top one is off a female and the bottom one a male (so Helen says!!)
These pads allow monitoring of a number of species, including otters, water voles, stoats, even pine martens, all of which have been known to use the rafts on occasion and kindly leave their prints behind. If mink tracks are detected and these other species are not in evidence, a cage trap can be added to catch the mink, and if one is captured, it can then be humanely destroyed.
We will not have time for trapping this summer, but would like to encourage a strategic eradication scheme in subsequent years.
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