Martens and Mink

     Both being members of the weasel family in North America, American martens and American mink are similar in several ways.  Both species have counterparts in Eurasia.  They are about the same size, up to three pounds in the larger males, and about two feet long.  Both species are slender-bodied, and have long, luxuriant fur, bushy tails and short legs for slipping into cavities after prey.  Both are quick in motion and fast-running to capture prey.  Both these species are aggressive, incessant, opportunistic predators that eat insects, mice, squirrels, small birds and so on.  And each kind, in turn, is preyed on by red foxes, coyotes, bobcats, great horned owls, golden eagles and other predators.  Each type of weasel must raise up to five young a year to make up for losses. 
     Both these weasel species inhabit forests and smaller woodlands, but martens live in trees and mink dwell along waterways, thus reducing competition for food with each other.  Becoming adapted to different habitats to lessen rivalry for food and shelter is what causes different species of life, including the various types of weasels.
     Also called pine martens, American martens live in the bigger trees of mature coniferous and mixed forests of Canada and Alaska.  Beautiful creatures, their fur color is yellow-buff to tawny-brown with lighter-hued hair on their heads.  Tail and leg hair is darker than on their bodies.  And their throats are straw-colored to orange.  Their feet are adapted for climbing in trees: They even move down a tree head-first, like squirrels.
     Forest destruction and over-trapping have reduced marten numbers in North America.  And although they are now protected from trapping here, logging still destroys their habitats.
     Living throughout most of North America, the adaptable American mink are semi-aquatic weasels that live along waterways and impoundments, in woods for the most part.  Mink are more stream-lined in body shape than martens are so they can swiftly slip through water after prey.  Some females of this weasel species raise young in abandoned muskrat burrows in stream banks, after they killed and ate the muskrats.  Mink also eat fish, frogs, water snakes, crayfish and other water creatures.
     I have seen several mink, both male and female, along waterways and ponds in southeastern Pennsylvania.  They are common here.  Males are larger and darker than their sisters.  I have even spotted a couple of their dens, such as a deserted wood chuck tunnel near a creek and a cavity among exposed tree roots that a female mink ran in to along a stream.  I once saw a female mink carrying several mice and a gray squirrel she killed down that chuck hole in the hour I watched her and her underground nursery.  And I saw a different female mink ferrying her five babies, one at a time,  across the Conestoga River in Lancaster County.     
     Each of these weasel species has been trapped for their beautiful, valuable fur.  Mink still are.  And mink are even raised on mink ranches for their furry pelts, which takes the pressure off trapping their wild relatives.
     Martens and mink are similar in appearance (very attractive) and actions, the former species in trees and the latter one around fresh water.  Both these forest species are exciting and interesting to experience when spotted.