Secrets of the James - Meet the mink

by Judith Warrington, JRA's Communications Coordinator

One of the memorable moments for students on the recent James River Expedition was the sighting of a riverside life-or-death battle between a mink and a muskrat. A mink? On the James River?


Many people are surprised to learn that mink do indeed live along the James River and its tributaries. In his History of Virginia (1626), Captain John Smith mentioned seeing “Martins, Powelcats, Weesels and Minkes.” The American mink’s (Mustela vison) habitat ranges across most of North America with the exception of the desert southwest and the Arctic shores of Canada. So it’s very possible that you’ve seen a mink and mistaken it for another of its relatives, a weasel or an otter. In general, the nocturnal, semi-aquatic mink is larger than a weasel but smaller than an otter. An aggressive predator, it feeds mainly on fish, frogs, and crayfish.

Mink have slim bodies, short legs, partially webbed feet and sleek, dark fur. They prefer to live in dens near rivers, swamps and lakes, and sometimes take over the burrows of other ground dwellers. A property dispute could have been the cause of the battle the Expedition saw, because the mink is the most important natural enemy of the muskrat. The mink, on the other hand, has few natural enemies.

Commercial mink breeders have developed a range of colors for the fur trade. The mink you might see along the James River is naturally dark brown, sometimes with a white patch under its chin or on its chest.

In the 1920s, the American mink was introduced in the United Kingdom to stock fur-farms, where they escaped or were released into the wild. Having no natural enemies there, they flourished and have become a nuisance species. In parts of Scotland, the mink is threatening ground-breeding bird populations and is the subject of controversial removal programs. But here on the James, a mink is a fairly rare and welcome sight.