Mink Rafts for the Hampshire Wildlife Trust
Apr 21, 2024
Four more Mink Rafts for the Winterbournes & Watercress Trust constructed by Keith Brickwood.
Four more rafts ready for delivery to the National Lottery funded Watercress and Winterbournes project in an effort to eliminate mink in the chalk streams, has placed a second order with AMS for the production of rafts to help them eliminate this invasive species.
The project is a partnership led by the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust.
Rafts are placed in the rivers* where it is suspected that Mink are present, and verifying this by floating a raft with a wet mud covered board on it and observing the footprints left by visiting wildlife. If Mink footprints are present then the board is replaced by a trap in order to catch the mink and destroy them.
*Pillhill Brook, the Upper Anton, Bourne Rivulet, Upper Test, Candover Brook, River Arle and Cheriton Stream
About
The American mink (or just 'mink') escaped from fur farms in the 1950s and 1960s, and now breeds across most of the country. It is an active predator, feeding on anything it is big enough to catch, including ground-nesting seabirds and our native water voles, which are now under threat of extinction. Mink are good swimmers and females are small enough to enter the water-line burrows of water voles and take their young.
