An Assessment of the Effects of Mink Ranches on Wild Mink

Researcher:

Dr. Jeff Bowman

Email:

jeff.bowman@ontario.ca

Phone:

705-755-1555

Project Objectives:

With mink harvest declining in Ontario, an assessment of mink numbers and what was causing the decline was necessary.  Initially we focused our efforts on contaminants in the water, but due to some interesting findings, we shifted our focus onto the effects of mink ranches.

We suspect that domesticated mink escaping from ranches are contributing to declines either through introduction of disease or by hybridizing with wild mink and introducing poor genetic traits into the wild mink.

This project is a combination of several initiatives, including a genetic study of ranch, wild, and mixed mink populations, and also a survey of Aleutian disease prevalence in wild mink.

The first results from this project are available at http://www.people.trentu.ca/jebowman

Collaborators and Participants:

• Albrecht Schulte-Hostedde, Department of Biology, Laurentian University
• Larissa Nituch (MSc student), Trent University
• Anne Kidd (MSc student), Laurentian University
• Rabies Research and Development Unit

Funding Partners: