By Chelsea Jandreau, Senior Nature Educator
There are animals you see so often they become part of the scenery. It is impossible to make a blanket statement about which animals those might be, as each person has a unique set of experiences, and dedicates their time and attention to spaces in varying degrees. Around here, those common animals might be deer, sparrows, or squirrels, but for some people, coyotes or Pileated Woodpeckers are their common sights.
Then there are animals you see once in a blue moon. The elusive creatures that make you stop and stare in excitement or wonder or confusion. Even as someone who spends a decent amount of time outside, there are plenty of animals I rarely see, and some that despite knowing they are out there, have never seen in the wild.
Personally, my own “once in a blue moon” animal that makes me stop and stare is less of an individual, and more of an entire family of animals. Mustelidae is a large family of mammals that encompasses otters, ferrets, badgers, weasels, fishers, minks, and more. For such a wide-ranging set of animals, it seems surprising that I see them so rarely. However, each time I do, I am left staring at it trying to figure out what exactly I am looking at.
Mustelids are found across North America and the world. Western New York has a decent variety of them. They come in all sizes, from the Least Weasel at less than a foot long to the River Otter which can be up to four feet long from their nose to the tip of their tail. Mustelid’s elongated bodies and comparatively short legs leave them with a bounding gait when they are not shuffling at a slower pace. They are the animal equivalent of a slinky. Typically, they also have rounded ears and a short snout.
With the exception of the Sea Otter, they all have scent glands under their tail that produce a strong, musky smell used to mark their territory. Most of them shelter in burrows or dens underground, and will eventually raise their young in these dens.
The Sea Otters mentioned above, are actually the one exception to this family of elusive animals. During the time I spent in California, they were very common along the coast and easy to see. Its New York counterpart, the River Otter, is a different story. I have seen signs of the otter around Audubon Community Nature Center, such as tracks and slides into the ponds, but I do not find myself outside early on a winter day often enough to spot them in person. I’m not much of a morning person.
I have a similar story when it comes to American Badgers. I lived in the Midwest for a few years, and despite all of the badger dens I saw, some freshly dug, I still have never seen one of those badgers in the wild.
My Mustelid sightings typically come as a surprise when I am not searching for them. I saw a Black-footed Ferret in South Dakota just after sunrise as we were driving down a dirt road. It darted across the road, and we spent the next half hour narrowing down what this oddly shaped creature could be. This area was a perfect habitat for them though, as prairie dogs make up most of their diet, and there was no shortage of those around.
At Audubon, I was walking back towards the Nature Center on a warm, sunny spring day when I saw my first North American Mink. I spotted movement along the edge of Spatterdock Pond and stopped to see what it was. I followed the long, brown, fuzzy animal from a distance as it continued moving along the edge of the pond, alternating between walking on land and swimming. It was the wrong shape for a muskrat, the wrong color for a weasel, and far too small to be a fisher. It still took me a minute to land on a decision simply because I had never seen a mink before, and it was actually much smaller than I was imagining.
I have only seen weasels a couple of times, and even then, I’m not fully certain whether those sightings were a weasel or an ermine. Weasels, especially the Long-tailed Weasel, look very similar to ermines. This makes them hard to tell apart when they are darting away from you. Both are typically a brown or reddish-brown on the top, and white on their belly, with long tails. Ermines and Long-tailed Weasels also both turn white in the winter to better blend in with their snowy surroundings. Other weasels keep their brown coat in the winter.
Those mustelids found in western New York are typically active throughout the winter. They may bed down in their dens on particularly cold and snowy days, but they have thick coats of fur to protect them as they emerge to search for food. Mustelids are mostly carnivores, although the occasional omnivore pops up in the family. They are ferocious predators, and they eat a variety of small animals, although many are known to attack prey that are their size or larger. Aquatic Mustelids, like River Otters and mink, eat fish, frogs, and small mammals. Smaller members of this family, like weasels and ermine, eat mice and voles. Fishers eat rodents, rabbits, birds, and even porcupines.
When compared side-by-side it is easy to see how these animals are all related, but people have a variety of feelings about the members of this family. Otters are charismatic and beloved, while weasels have often been portrayed as the trickster in fairy tales and stories. I, however, will always be fascinated by how one family of animals can also have so many different behaviors, characteristics, and associations.
Audubon Community Nature Center builds and nurtures connections between people and nature. ACNC is located just east of Route 62 between Warren and Jamestown. The trails are open from dawn to dusk and birds of prey can be viewed anytime the trails are open. The Nature Center is open from 10:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. daily except Sunday when it opens at 1:00 p.m. More information can be found online at auduboncnc.org or by calling (716) 569-2345.
Cover photo: Mink standing in a stream. Photo by Carlos Guindon/USFWS
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