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No, not people with guns, I’m talking about this little animal that's messing up the local wildlife near the rivers. I’d heard about it before, but today was the first time I actually saw two american minks with my own eyes, in a small stream behind my workplace.
They look cute, sure, but they’re considered an invasive species because they’re a real threat to native animals, especially small mammals, amphibians, and birds.
I couldn’t get a photo, but here are some pics taken around this area over the past few years.
42 sats \ 2 replies \ @k00b 16 Jul
Those are otters! They are quite cute. Some people have affections for them that resemble others' affection for pandas. They're all over the west coast of the US. I know ya'll have a similar climate, but I wonder what brought them all that way.
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The news says it’s the American mink, but honestly I have a hard time telling them apart. From what I read, the American mink was brought over here, mostly to Galicia, but also to northern Portugal, by fur producers back in the ’80s. When the market started cooling down, some producers shut down and let a few loose into the wild, and some probably escaped on their own. Once again, it’s humans messing with nature. There’ve been a lot of sightings around my area over the past 5 years, but it’s not a new problem in the Gerês mountains and Galicia. I think the UK’s been dealing with this a lot too.
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42 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 16 Jul
It probably is a mink then. It does seem more streamlined.
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