Establishment of island population for the European mink, Mustela lutreola, in Saaremaa Island in Estonia
Estonian State Conservation Center
Estonian Environmental Investment Center
WildCRU at Oxford Unversity
The European mink is one of the most highly endangered carnivores in Europe. It can be found in North-East of Spain (around 500 individuals) in Western France (around 200 individuals), in Romania (estimate of 1000 individuals), in the Ukraine (estimate 500 individuals), in Russia (number unknown, perhaps few thousands). All its populations are highly fragmented and suffer from various factors of extinction. The most important agents of extinction are found to be the habitat loss, impact of alien American mink, taking from the wild (at present in the form of by-catch or killing by nonselective traps or poisons).
Although there are number of factors behind the extinction of the European mink, the most complicated to handle is the impact of the American mink. This alien species is wide-spread in Europe and its invasion has always been coincided with the disappearance of the native mink. Several scientific studies exist explaining the ways the alien mink ousts the native one.
Because of its critical status the European mink is regarded to be critically endangered in European Union and endangered in European continent with notion that the information from Russia is insufficient and it might well be that this species deserves to be regarded as critically endangered for the whole continent (http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/conservation/species/ema/species/mustela_lutreola.htm).
One way, and probably the only way along with ex situ conservation, to guarantee the species survival is to maintain or establish small populations in the areas inaccessible for the American mink and but with sufficient amount of habitats for minimum viable population.
Since 2000 foundation LUTREOLA in collaboration various institutions has worked towards establishment of European mink island population in Hiiumaa Island (1000 km² ) in Estonia. The operation started with the removal of the American mink in Hiiumaa island in 1998 – 1999. Since then the European minks have been released to the island and in the course of action the methodology of release has been fine-tuned. This has led to multi-faceted experience about re-introduction process as well as to a population around 20 – 30 animals of mink in Hiiumaa Island. The population is still not self-sustaining, but likely to reach such as status in few years.
Having only a single safe island population makes the whole conservation process vulnerable as the unpredictable catastrophic events may destroy the single established island population. The establishment of second island populations in the largest in Estonia Saaremaa Island (2400 km2) would decrease the impact of the catastrophic events twice, making the already gained conservation efforts more sustainable.
Project aims and objectives
Project aims to establish the core island population for the European mink in Saaremaa Island:
- Release annually 30 – 40 European mink in 2009 -2010.
- To observe the survival of minimum 10-15% of released animals.
- To register the first breeding in the wild in Saaremaa Island.
