A 13-year campaign to eradicate a predator which has been responsible for a decline in ground nesting bird populations in the Hebrides is entering its final stage.
Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) believes there are only up to 40 mink left on Lewis, Harris and Uist and is appealing to the public to help capture them. The Hebridean Mink Project (HMP) was set up in 2001 to protect internationally important populations of wader birds from the fur farm escapees and about 2,200 animals have been trapped to date.
Once captured they were humanely killed and removed from the islands, which has resulted in some colonies of seabird and wader species showing signs of recovery.
The project uses so-called “mink police” – small waterproof units attached to the live catch cage traps which are activated when an animal is trapped inside.
The units automatically communicate via the mobile phone network to a website and allow the team to check they are functioning properly.
Given the trapping success, the next stage of the programme was to predict the number of surviving mink using computer modelling in partnership between SNH and Aberdeen University – the biggest project of its kind in the UK.
They provide important information on the expected population characteristics using trapping data, but there is uncertainty in predicting when the species will be completely eradicated. It has been suggested that mink extinction could happen this year, 2017 or by 2021.
HMP manager Iain Macleod said: “This computer modelling exercise was carried out to help us understand how the mink population on Harris and Lewis has responded to the intensive and long-term trapping work.
“All the computer modelling does is add exhaustive support to the impression held by the project’s staff, namely that the population of mink in Lewis and Harris is now extremely small.
“All our efforts are now focused on the few remaining individuals and their eradication.
“We are looking for information from the community and for volunteers who want to help us with our new electronic trap system.”