RESEARCH PAPER
The role of environmental variables and sympatric meso-carnivores on the detection and occupancy of American mink during winter
 
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1
John Prince Research Forest, P.O. Box 2378, Fort St. James, British Columbia
 
2
Department of Natural Resource Science, Thompson Rivers University, 900 McGill Road, Kamloops, British Columbia
 
 
Online publication date: 2017-03-09
 
 
Publication date: 2017-03-09
 
 
Hystrix It. J. Mamm. 2017;28(1):16-20
 
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ABSTRACT

The spatial distributions of animals generally are affected by the availability of food, competition, predators, mates, and the need to communicate with conspecifics. An understanding of a given species' spatial distribution is essential when considering the ecological requirements of populations as well as the impacts of anthropogenic activities and environmental change. The American mink (Neovison vison) is a cryptic, semi-aquatic carnivore that ranges over a large portion of North America yet the ecological role of the species is not well understood. We sought to investigate the linkages between habitat and species co-occurrence on the occupancy patterns of mink within riparian habitats during winter. We monitored mink using remote cameras (n=37) which were deployed in riparian habitat along streams including lakeshore/stream confluences. We found that fish-bearing streams positively affected mink occupancy, while the amount of older (>40 years) coniferous forests had a negative relationship with mink occupancy. We postulate that while mink seem to occur at high densities in altered ecosystems and in areas where they are invasive, in their native range these animals may be limited by environmental and competitive pressures in the system. Future work should explore the interactions between carnivore species in addition to habitat selection in order to develop more robust monitoring and management practices.

eISSN:1825-5272
ISSN:0394-1914
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