Fishermen who flock to the Midlands to coarse fish should not be alarmed if feral mink try to steal their catch, according to a mink expert. Mr Pat Warner, of Duchas, the Heritage Service of the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, says there are many cases of fishermen being frightened and, indeed, being robbed by wild mink.
Mr Warner, a former Midlands regional manager with Duchas, has heard many stories about the spread of mink from farms set up to rear them in the 1960s.
"We used to get all kinds of reports about how dangerous mink are but the truth is that none of these have been substantiated down the years. But they are extremely cheeky, filled with curiosity and know no fear. That is one of the reasons they have got a bad name down the years.
"When someone meets a wild animal which does not behave like wild animals normally do it tends to spook them and this is what has happened with the mink." When mink began to colonise in the 1970s, they inflicted severe damage on wildlife and fish stocks. "They caused havoc with the coot and moorhen populations but then the birds began to learn and build in areas that are harder to attack.
"We just have to accept that we have a new species and that it will eventually find its own place in the nature of things. There is nothing like the fear of mink around now compared to the 1970s." He says reports that mink are driving out the otter population did not stand up as they preferred different habitats. "Sometimes when we examined the droppings from otters we discovered the remains of mink so it would appear that the otter can more than hold its own." He says because mink are territorial, the population is now settling down and the mink, a river and lakeshore dweller, has found its niche in Irish wildlife.
He adds no one has been able to confirm a report from Co Fermanagh in the 1950s that mink killed a litter of labrador puppies. "That story keeps being recycled but I have not been able to source it."