Carnivores: introductions and alien invasive species

Author: Johan Thissen

https://doi.org/10.63269/SJL6016

This issue of Lutra has two articles on mink. One is on the feasibility of reintroducing the almost extinct European mink (Mustela lutreola). The authors (Zwartenkot et al.) come to the conclusion that the Netherlands has a considerable number of suitable areas for the reintroduction of the European mink. A few months ago Springer Nature published the volume on carnivores as part of the Handbook of European Mammals. It showed that, apart from Russia, the critically endangered European mink is now restricted to southwestern France, northern Spain, the deltas of the Danube and the Dniestr (Romania and Ukraine) and the Ukrainian Carpathians. Since the mid-19th Century its range has contracted by 90%. There is an introduced population on the island of Hiiuma (Estonia). This introduction succeeded, but two recent introductions in Germany (in Saarland and Steinhuder Meer) failed. This shows that we should not take the success of an introduction in the Netherlands for granted. One of the drivers for the disappearance of the European mink is its displacement by the invasive, alien, American mink (Neogale vison), which brings us to the second article on mink in this volume of Lutra. La Haye traces the disappearance of feral American mink in the Netherlands to.....