Home
The best places to see a mink are in wetland environments like large marshes or along the shores of lakes, rivers and streams.
Mink 
Mustela vison
A major economic attraction for the first Europeans who explored the North American continent, mink are still prized as one of Canada's more valuable fur-bearing animals. Though they are one of the least conspicuous animals in our environment, they are far from rare.
Healthy habitats often support eight or more per square kilometre. Mink are found right across mainland Canada south of the tree line. The best places to see them are in wetland environments such as large marshlands or among lakeshores, rivers and streams. That's because mink are a semi-aquatic form of weasel that rely on the presence of waterways as travelpaths and major sources of food and shelter. One way to find mink habitat is to look for a muskrat hut. Where you find muskrat, you can generally find mink.
To actually see a mink might be a little more difficult, though. You may have to spend considerable time during the hours of dusk and dawn sitting motionlessly and watching carefully. Natural hunters and predators, mink are wary and wily animals. If you see one, you're liable to see it on the move as it lopes briskly along a shoreline, or crawls underneath some brush or into a hole in a stream bank, reappearing a minute later to continue on its way. You may also see one swim expertly across a stretch of open water, clamber up on a muskrat house, sniff the air and then disappear into vegetation behind it.
The average adult female mink is 50cm long and weighs about a kilogram. About the size of a small house cat, the larger males average 53cm long and weigh around two kilograms. Tails take up about a third of their total body length. The fur is soft and glossy , a rich brown to almost black above and pale underneath. Buff to white-colored patches occur on the lower chin, throat and chest, but these vary in size and shape among different animals.
Mostly nocturnal, mink remain active year-round. Except when breeding or raising young, males and females select individual home territories which they mark with their scent glands and defend actively. Once a territory is established, most activity is restricted to within in. Denning sites are often close to water in well-maintained bank burrows abandoned by or stolen from muskrats or beavers. Other choices can include spaces under large exposed tree roots, beaver lodges, muskrat houses and hollowed-out stumps or fallen logs. Males usually range over much larger areas than females and often use two or more dens throughout their territory.
Mainly, mink eat small mammals such as meadow voles and shrews and they swim and dive underwater to catch fish and crayfish. They are also known to eat birds, eggs, frogs, salamanders, and a variety of insects. Occasionally, larger males will attack and eat small rabbits or young muskrats, especially during fall when the muskrats are dispersing from their nests and are the most vulnerable to attack. Despite the fact that mink seem to have a fairly short life span in the wild, they are extremely prolific and capable of completely replacing their populations over a three-year span. Mating occurs once per year, in late February and March, and from two to ten kits are born in May. Kits are born deaf and blind, and don't gain their sight until five weeks into life. Soon after though, they are weaned and begin to accompany the mother on hunting expeditions. Even though they are capable of fending for themselves at two months, kits stay with their mother until autumn when they leave to establish their own territories.
