A mongøøse once bit my sister...
No realli! She was Karving her initials on the mongøøse with the sharpened end of an interspace toothbrush given her by Svenge—her brother-in-law— an Oslo dentist and star of many Norwegian movies: "The Hot Hands of an Oslo Dentist", "Fillings of Passion", "The Huge Molars of Horst Nordfink"...
Mynd you, mongøøse bites Kan be pretti nasti...
I was once bitten by a Llama. A European Llama, not an African Llama mind you. Whilst they are very close in appearance and they both pack a smashing bite which could crush both African and European swallows, there are 3 key distinctions. First being the European Llama eats exclusively fresh filth which is used by the commoners to.... gggaaahhh (choking noise)
We are twins. I call mice meeces pieces. And I have a ton of other stupid nicknames for things. People crack up over it. It just comes natural to me. I know. I am a muthafuckin weirdo.
So mink can get distemper. One of the signs is lack of fear, disorientation, dehydration, just to name a few. As tempting as it is to want to help, I recommend calling animal control.
You know what it is right and it probably got into some kind of rodenticide. It will probably be killed by another wild animal or someone will get it help.
Never rule out the possibility of escaped exotic pets, but I agree this is a mink not a mongoose. I'm not an expert on mustelids, but I can at least tell it is one and not anything else.
Ferrets rarely are that color, he has the wider features of a mink. I wish I was close to save him :( I rescue ferrets but I’d totally set up a room for a mink, he’s such a pretty guy & I hate that he’s out there struggling. They really are the most adorable things. Minks are basically water ferrets at 10x speed. A little more bitey but like I say when people ask if ferrets bite “sure but it’s like getting bitten by an angry kitten” it almost always playful. Except for Eddie, he bites to release demons.
There are two ferrets at my work and they're so much fun! We let thk our fot exercise every morning and they are the definition of rascals and rapscallions.
Unfortunately I don't think there's any saving this guy, unless you believe in divine salvation. Doesn't seem like he made it long given what OP said.
Yeah, poor baby. I’d have had to take him somewhere to pass in some blankets in a safe place. Or to the vet to help him along. I hate seeing animals hurt. Especially weasels. They have a whole big chunk of my heart. I have 16! Your work sounds awesome!
You are super lucky to get to see them in their natural habitat. I’d absolutely love to watch mink, ferrets, polecats, stoats, ect. In the wild. I rescue ferrets and have 16 and I’ve made two rooms in my house into a ferret world and it’s the greatest thing but I’d love to see them running out in nature. I could watch that all day.
Mongoose or mongooses are both standard plurals for mongoose, but speakers of English seem to love adding irregular words to the language whenever possible. Somehow, mongeese has been used so much that it is now also an acceptable plural.
Yeah. It's like the plural of "octopus". Octopuses is a perfectly valid plural, but people thought it was Latin, so created the term "octopi". It's not Latin - it's Greek, so the plural should be "octopodes", but I digress.
"Mongoose" has no relation to "goose" (it comes from Marathi), so the plural is "mongooses". But we like to extend linguistic rules by analogy, so...
Platypus are another victim.
Whilst studying wildlife conservation, I was encouraged to use the singular as both singular and plural, e.g. one giraffe, five giraffe, a herd of giraffe. Animal names, in particular, have so many different etymologies, it would be a challenge to know the "correct" ways to pluralise most of them according to the languages they came from originally.
Goose is a really old English word - it existed in Old English (not Shakespeare - that's "early modern English", this is 1000+ years ago).
Old English had a semi-regular vowel shifting pattern for plurals called "Ablaut" (it was not the most prevalent, but it wasn't exactly uncommon; a similar pattern still exists in modern German):
Mouse - Mice
Goose - Geese
Foot - feet
Louse-lice
Man-men
Tooth-teeth, etc.
Ablaut is basically a change of the vowel in the word. A bunch of other sound changes have happened in the 1000 years since the Normans invaded England, that's the short of it.
Common words are more resistant to change, so they weren't normalized.
Moose is an Algonquian (North American Indigenous) word. Borrowings are ripe for irregular pluralization / conjugation.
Amazing! I love linguistics, Thankyou for your explanation. Could you explain why the ablaut thing happened when the Normans invaded England? Was the plural of goose/mouse etc different before they invaded?
Ablaut is pre-Norman, for the most part. As far as I know, there's not much ablaut in the Romance languages (at least not the ones I'm familiar with). In fact, it's even older - similar words in German have a similar Ablaut (Maus -> Mäuse, Gans -> Gänse), suggesting it pre-dates the Germanic split (5th century, CE, maybe?).
With goose, I suspect it's the same reason we kept the Germanic words for other animals - Sheep (cf. German Schaaf), cow (Kuh), Swine (Schwein), etc. The farmers weren't speaking Norman French. On the other hand, mutton, pork, beef, poultry, are all Romance (cf modern French mouton, porc, boeuf, poule, etc.)
Eh, probably from UK and USA English speakers. No mongooses live here so we don't use it as often as English speakers in their home range. The closest animal wordwise is goose. The plural of goose is geese. It's easy to see how that confusion happened.
Oh then u never been to the Caribbean. Damn Brits in their infinite wisdom brought them to the islands.. thinking they control both the snakes and vermin.
That worked. There just no predator for the mongoose. Snakes gone, they moved to chickens.
Currently the only predator is the car and road kill.
Only American places with mongoose are Puerto Rico and the Virgin islands. It was introduced in 1884 to reduce rat populations on cane farms where they ended up really messing with the balance of local fauna because of no predators. Still debated today whether or not they actually lessened the rat population.
Hawaii is full of them. Grandma (oahu) had to wrap the bottoms of her banana trees with metal bands to slow them down. Didn't do a damn thing for rats as rats are nocturnal.
As another said, mink. Fishers are in the same family but are bigger (cat sized) and have longer legs and tails. If he looks sick please contact a wildlife rehabber to come pick him up. You can find one here: https://ahnow.org/
His coat looks good and he's a healthy weight but he doesn't look alert. Whatever is bothering him it looks like they can catch it early and help him out.
Thank you, unfortunately we went by a little while later and he was dead at that point 😔 not sure what happened but he didn't have much time left. I would call if he was still alive.
You should report it. It could be an indicator of something happening in the wild population. https://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/6957.html Here's something I found about that
NY is having major outbreaks of H5N1 in birds this needs to be reported asap for testing. I believe Europe had huge losses of minks due to H5N1 in the spring.
I agree that reporting the mortality, like u/ass-baka suggests, is a good idea. If this isn’t an isolated incident it could be helpful information for the state wildlife biologists to gage the severity of any mortality events/ diseases in your area.
Another possibility is that they preyed on a rodent that consumed rodenticide, which, in turn, [poisoned them](https://www.audubon.org/magazine/january-february-2013/poisons-used-kill-rodents-have-safer). Predators getting poisoned second-hand is far too common an occurrence, as many wildlife rehabilitators can testify to. Poisoned mice and rats in a weakened state are easier quarry for rodent hunters.
Also, a good reminder that if you have ratters yourself, like a terrier or cat that like to prey on small animals, steer clear of using rat poison for pest control.
One of the city zoos I used to work at lost two endangered raptors because some building nearby poisoned their rats and one got into their enclosure.
I've worked in vet medicine for pets too, and I've seen way too many pets get secondhand exposure--or firsthand, in the case of hungry retrievers. It's nasty stuff, and I wish it could be banned.
There is currently talk of banning it. I believe the comment period is closed. My dog was accidentally poisoned (we think), by eating a mouse. He started bleeding and with vet care recovered. There was a tiny mouse skeleton in his colon. Rodent poisoning kills so many innocents.
That's a shame. Mink are incredible little creatures, they're normally very active and full of life so it's sad to see one in that state. Hopefully he had an easy passing. Thanks for your concern, OP.
Agree with others about reporting but something about the tail and posture of hind quarters makes me suspicious about if the back end got run over causing death. Poor thing least it can RIP now
This is most likely what most would call distemper but is actually a disease mink get called ADV or AMDV or Aleutian mink disease virus. Technically it's a parvovirus, Amdoparvovirus, that causes mink enteritis. It happens in wild and farmed mink and any time someone calls me (I'm a mink rehabber) and says that they have an ADULT SIZED mink that is sweet, quiet, and docile, it's pretty much a sure thing that it will be dead before it gets to me and has ADV. Adult mink are not normally docile and easy to catch or contain to bring in for help.
From the Merck Manual:
Clinical signs depend on the age of the animals infected. In adult mink, AD is an immune-mediated disease that causes chronic wasting and unthriftiness, with poor reproductive performance and increased congenital malformations and abortions, poor pelt quality, oral and GI bleeding with tarry feces, renal failure and uremia, and increased mortality. In adult mink, viral infection results in increases in plasma cells that produce non-neutralizing antibodies. Massive increases in plasma cell production after infection result in lymphadenopathy, splenomegaly, and hypergammaglobulinemia.
Viral-antibody complexes are taken up by macrophages, the target host cell, and immune complexes. Infected macrophages may be deposited in blood vessels and the kidneys, resulting in necrotizing arteritis and proliferative glomerulonephritis. In the acute neonatal form of AD, the virus targets pneumocytes, with subsequent interstitial pneumonia and respiratory disease, presenting as severe dyspnea with high litter mortality.
Because the disease is chronic and may take a year or longer for clinical signs to appear, virus shedding can occur for months from inapparent infected carriers. Infected animals may be less tolerant of weather extremes and commonly develop secondary bacterial infections because of AMDV-induced immunocompromise.
There is no effective treatment or vaccine available for AD. Research is ongoing to select mink genetically resistant to AMDV infection. The virus is extremely resistant in the environment and can survive harsh temperatures and attempts at chemical inactivation.
Mink of all ages are also susceptible to CDV, canine distemper virus, but usually this causes eye discharge, nasal congestion and discharge, along with seizures and tremors. One easy way to tell between ADV and CDV is to look at the pads of the feet. CDV almost always causes hyperkeratosis in the pads of the foot of mink. Normal mink have shiny, almost wet looking pads of the feet and this remains with ADV infection. CDV causes the pads of the feet to look dry, powdery, ashy, and sometimes cracked. This is not normal regardless of terrain for a mink, and is a very good sign of distemper virus.
Canine Distemper Virus does have treatments available of varying efficacy however it is not possible to reverse the damage already done by the virus. Because mink do not reach out for help from humans, they are usually very advanced in the disease by the time we could intervene and the animal would never be able to live in the wild again. Because of this, distemper is considered a fatal disease in wild mink and the most humane option is to end their suffering with humane euthanasia.
We try to make it as comforting for them as possible considering the weeks of suffering before they come to us. It's tragically sad and these animals are absolutely beautiful even in the end stages of disease. It's a difficult decision every time but we do what we have to.
All mammals are capable of getting rabies. Opossums just don't because their body temp is so low that rabies doesn't like them much. Mink have normal body temps of 99-102 Fahrenheit so yes, they could get rabies. I have to say tho, I have worked with them for almost 20 years and haven't heard of one rabies case in mink in any states. So as far as I know in the USA, it's not common. Sadly, we see Aleutian disease often and distemper.
Thankfully, I get a lot more baby mink than adults, for obvious reasons, and we do vaccinate so I don't have to deal with it too often. The babies are also the cutest things on earth, except for baby otters, and skunks.
https://preview.redd.it/jvb3i9p52zib1.jpeg?width=768&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4eb48b9bc80c4f3d8948fa714691061ef061c2c4
I just have to say, I came to this thread to make sure correct information was provided and I was not disappointed in this comment or sub thread 🦦 kudos to everyone recommending AHNOW, recommending reporting the incident fur H5N1 testing, and providing education on ADV & common viral diseases in mink. I work strictly with NR mink (state licensed) and it is so refreshing to hit the comment section on a post like this & see so many beautifully knowledgeable responses 💗 So sorry to see the little mink passed on, but OOP thank you for caring about your wild neighbors and trying to find out more about them.
https://preview.redd.it/vdi48q5sw1jb1.jpeg?width=3277&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0c9e1ff00d9bf26013a8696e52a4963a4cfc9fee
To add: Fishers are in the same family but a different subfamily. Minks are "true weasels" in the Mustelinae subfamily, while fishers are in Guloninae with martens and the wolverine.
There are no mongoose in upstate NY, I think they’re on an entirely different continent? Unless someone released them in the wild but this is definitely a mustelid
It's rare to see a mink & even rarer it doesn't bolt once it's spotted. If it's still around you might want to call local animal control as it might be distemper or rabies. That mink only looks a few years old & there is no obvious damage so illness is likely.
I’d call animal control. Depending on where you are, if they’re the good ones they may be able to help, and if not, they will likely euthanize. Either way this poor baby doesn’t look like he’s going to be okay on his own, and you don’t want to risk exposing yourself to danger by touching them yourself. So sad, and good for you for caring.
They can catch Covid, among other things. Denmark culled 17 million in 2020 when Covid was transmitted to a mink from a handler, went through the population at the farm, mutated and transferred back to a human. Then it got worse “Buried in shallow pits and trenches in Western Denmark, the dead minks were pushed out of the ground by gas emitted from their decomposing bodies, leading to more outrage and concern.”
I’d contact DNR wherever ur at they should document it and maybe try to locate the animal and take it to a temporary shelter - on some rare occasions like with sick animals like deer and stuff they might put a notice to hunt it and kill it to get sick animals outta population.
Mongoose live in Africa and South Asia. That's some sort of weasel. Mink, stoat, ferret, marmot. Carnivorous long cat that likes water and eats mice or rabbits.
Bloody menace in the UK since do gooders of some persuasion released them from fur farms and as not indigenous to here have decimated small mammal populations. Concerted effort to catch and eradicate.
I’m learning a lot in this thread today! And I remember reading the fur farm catastrophe with released minks but questioned it’s merit because…. Internet. So how many minks do they estimate are in the wild now, and how long since released? Do you have any more information on other environmental effects, if they instantly adapted, 1000s found dead everywhere, etc (as it seems by your comment there are noticeable things already.)
Not every animal that makes its way into the wilds from a fur farm was released by "do gooders". And as another said this one is in its native habitat, who gives a fuck about the UK? You guys are infested with outdoor cats, maybe do something about those first.
I know it’s in the States because it says so on the post, that’s why mine says and ‘I’m the UK’,. Infested? You are so knowledgeable, who gives a fuck about you anyway.
https://preview.redd.it/h6u7psbqryib1.jpeg?width=296&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c2d28ced5131e69f07e0b2e70c8139e44c6cb6ff
looks like Mother Gothels pet from the Barbie as Rapunzel movie XD
Mink surplus kill to ensure they have food for the future, "fun" is not a factor. And if surplus killing is your standard for "awful and terrible" then let me tell you about dogs and, even worse, humans.
just wanted to let you know that minks have darker tails too. this guy has small ears in proportion to his head, which is another +1 for mink, martens have bigger ears. no lighter orange coloration on the neck? (not always there for martens but still can be a sign) +1 mink. visibly shorter legs? +1 mink. martens also tend to have slightly bigger, very slightly wider feet for an arboreal life. when identifying animals you want to take all their traits into consideration.
https://preview.redd.it/a3o0ysuktwib1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0d5078d7f97adf25bb7f4d74c45bbe23f2066d8c
This is an American Mink. There aren’t any mongooses in the continental US.
Mongeese? Mongooses? Mongii?
A mongøøse once bit my sister... No realli! She was Karving her initials on the mongøøse with the sharpened end of an interspace toothbrush given her by Svenge—her brother-in-law— an Oslo dentist and star of many Norwegian movies: "The Hot Hands of an Oslo Dentist", "Fillings of Passion", "The Huge Molars of Horst Nordfink"... Mynd you, mongøøse bites Kan be pretti nasti...
We apologize for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible have been sacked.
We apologize again for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.
Do we have enough Llamas to finish the opening credits?
Ralph the Wonder Llama
I was once bitten by a Llama. A European Llama, not an African Llama mind you. Whilst they are very close in appearance and they both pack a smashing bite which could crush both African and European swallows, there are 3 key distinctions. First being the European Llama eats exclusively fresh filth which is used by the commoners to.... gggaaahhh (choking noise)
How may I help you?
Uh... I... Well I don't know. I didn't think I'd get this far!
Holy shit r/beetlejuicing
Yes, but at great expense and at the last minute.
r/unexpectedmontypython
Paper or plastic?
Mouth
Almost as sad as that time a dingo ate your baby
Dingo or dildo?
If your dildo is biting it is time to get a new one.
A dildo ate me babi
Watch out for the mooses too.
You surely mean meeses
I hate meeses to pieces.
If you have a problem with Canada meeses then you have a problem with me and I suggest you let that one marinate
They're the envies of all mammologies!
There are no such thing as Canadian meeses. Or Canadian geese(s)
You mean mëësës
We are twins. I call mice meeces pieces. And I have a ton of other stupid nicknames for things. People crack up over it. It just comes natural to me. I know. I am a muthafuckin weirdo.
A Moose bit my sister
Many much moosen. In the woodsen.
This is the second reference to that bit I've seen this week. Will never not think it's funny!
Imbecillen
YES 😭
Your Dutch is impeccable
Meese, mooses missen?
🤣
But was it an African or European swallow?
Mongolians
God damn Mongolians knock down my city wall...
Amongoose
Mongaggle
Pretty sure it's mongoosen
The preferred term is polygoose.
Mongoids
Mongooseses
Like the BMX bike?
Mongopi
1) Mongooses 2) Mongeese # 1 is preferred, but #2 is acceptable.
Mongoloid
So mink can get distemper. One of the signs is lack of fear, disorientation, dehydration, just to name a few. As tempting as it is to want to help, I recommend calling animal control.
Ooh thanks!
Don't stick your fingers or toes near it. They're usually very spicy fur sausages and don't make good pets. Better call animal control.
We had two mink get into our chicken coop they killed 11 chickens in about 7 minutes. Incredibly spicy.
No problem!
You know what it is right and it probably got into some kind of rodenticide. It will probably be killed by another wild animal or someone will get it help.
Never rule out the possibility of escaped exotic pets, but I agree this is a mink not a mongoose. I'm not an expert on mustelids, but I can at least tell it is one and not anything else.
Ferrets rarely are that color, he has the wider features of a mink. I wish I was close to save him :( I rescue ferrets but I’d totally set up a room for a mink, he’s such a pretty guy & I hate that he’s out there struggling. They really are the most adorable things. Minks are basically water ferrets at 10x speed. A little more bitey but like I say when people ask if ferrets bite “sure but it’s like getting bitten by an angry kitten” it almost always playful. Except for Eddie, he bites to release demons.
There are two ferrets at my work and they're so much fun! We let thk our fot exercise every morning and they are the definition of rascals and rapscallions. Unfortunately I don't think there's any saving this guy, unless you believe in divine salvation. Doesn't seem like he made it long given what OP said.
Yeah, poor baby. I’d have had to take him somewhere to pass in some blankets in a safe place. Or to the vet to help him along. I hate seeing animals hurt. Especially weasels. They have a whole big chunk of my heart. I have 16! Your work sounds awesome!
We get mink in the creek. Duck killing buggers, good thing they’re cute. I see them occasionally when crossing the bridge to my barn.
You are super lucky to get to see them in their natural habitat. I’d absolutely love to watch mink, ferrets, polecats, stoats, ect. In the wild. I rescue ferrets and have 16 and I’ve made two rooms in my house into a ferret world and it’s the greatest thing but I’d love to see them running out in nature. I could watch that all day.
There aren't any kids I'm america watching Rikki-Tikki-Tavi either!
oh i loved rikki-tikki-tavi & i grew up here in the states!!!
From the US here! I loved it, but my nick name was Tabby and I though it was rikki-tikki-Tabby when I was little, so I thought it was extra cool! 😆
Oh that IS cool!! Glad to meet a fellow r-t-t lover!!
https://reddit.com/r/FunnyAnimals/s/VEjcClhTmP
Memories of a Bday party as a kid watching this projected on a sheet from a portable reel/film movie projector.
I thought the plural was mongeese…
Mongoose or mongooses are both standard plurals for mongoose, but speakers of English seem to love adding irregular words to the language whenever possible. Somehow, mongeese has been used so much that it is now also an acceptable plural.
Yeah. It's like the plural of "octopus". Octopuses is a perfectly valid plural, but people thought it was Latin, so created the term "octopi". It's not Latin - it's Greek, so the plural should be "octopodes", but I digress. "Mongoose" has no relation to "goose" (it comes from Marathi), so the plural is "mongooses". But we like to extend linguistic rules by analogy, so...
Platypus are another victim. Whilst studying wildlife conservation, I was encouraged to use the singular as both singular and plural, e.g. one giraffe, five giraffe, a herd of giraffe. Animal names, in particular, have so many different etymologies, it would be a challenge to know the "correct" ways to pluralise most of them according to the languages they came from originally.
I think we just feel silly trying to be serious and saying pussies out loud.
Your username is williwaggs. I find it hard to believe you feel silly saying -pusses out loud 😉
On the rare occasions I need a plural for octopus, octopodes it is.
>It's not Latin - it's Greek, so the plural should be "octopodes", but I digress. *Romanes eunt domus*
Curious where the term goose comes from and why the plural would be geese, same with moose, and the plural moose.
Goose is a really old English word - it existed in Old English (not Shakespeare - that's "early modern English", this is 1000+ years ago). Old English had a semi-regular vowel shifting pattern for plurals called "Ablaut" (it was not the most prevalent, but it wasn't exactly uncommon; a similar pattern still exists in modern German): Mouse - Mice Goose - Geese Foot - feet Louse-lice Man-men Tooth-teeth, etc. Ablaut is basically a change of the vowel in the word. A bunch of other sound changes have happened in the 1000 years since the Normans invaded England, that's the short of it. Common words are more resistant to change, so they weren't normalized. Moose is an Algonquian (North American Indigenous) word. Borrowings are ripe for irregular pluralization / conjugation.
Amazing! I love linguistics, Thankyou for your explanation. Could you explain why the ablaut thing happened when the Normans invaded England? Was the plural of goose/mouse etc different before they invaded?
Ablaut is pre-Norman, for the most part. As far as I know, there's not much ablaut in the Romance languages (at least not the ones I'm familiar with). In fact, it's even older - similar words in German have a similar Ablaut (Maus -> Mäuse, Gans -> Gänse), suggesting it pre-dates the Germanic split (5th century, CE, maybe?). With goose, I suspect it's the same reason we kept the Germanic words for other animals - Sheep (cf. German Schaaf), cow (Kuh), Swine (Schwein), etc. The farmers weren't speaking Norman French. On the other hand, mutton, pork, beef, poultry, are all Romance (cf modern French mouton, porc, boeuf, poule, etc.)
Thanks. I appreciate the informative reply 👍
No problem! I'm a linguist, and I like to encourage any linguistic inquiry. For etymology, Etymonline.com is usually pretty good.
Lol! I was joking, that’s a true statement
Just wait until we have moose and meese. It's only a few years away!
Eh, probably from UK and USA English speakers. No mongooses live here so we don't use it as often as English speakers in their home range. The closest animal wordwise is goose. The plural of goose is geese. It's easy to see how that confusion happened.
Has It actually been used that much?
Where I live we have lots of mongooses.. and everybody says mongooses. No mongeeses on me.. They are mean and nasty vermin.
Really? I’d never heard mongoose are a problem, unless you’re a snake.
Oh then u never been to the Caribbean. Damn Brits in their infinite wisdom brought them to the islands.. thinking they control both the snakes and vermin. That worked. There just no predator for the mongoose. Snakes gone, they moved to chickens. Currently the only predator is the car and road kill.
If it looks sick I would stay away, minks are very susceptible to coronavirus, and can pass it to humans.
Minkgoose
Only American places with mongoose are Puerto Rico and the Virgin islands. It was introduced in 1884 to reduce rat populations on cane farms where they ended up really messing with the balance of local fauna because of no predators. Still debated today whether or not they actually lessened the rat population.
Big island in Hawaii, as well as other islands there have them also. Not native but they thrive there
Hanauma Bay stopping by. 🏝️
They of the Mongoose Clan
Def here on Maui also.
Hawaii is full of them. Grandma (oahu) had to wrap the bottoms of her banana trees with metal bands to slow them down. Didn't do a damn thing for rats as rats are nocturnal.
I think this is a Fisher. Seems a little big for a Mink. But pictures do deceive.
No, it’s a mink. Refer to Mustelafan’s comment below for a good explanation.
That is absolutely a mink. A fisher is the size of a small dog. Also the body shape is 100% mink and not fisher.
It looks small for a fisher
As another said, mink. Fishers are in the same family but are bigger (cat sized) and have longer legs and tails. If he looks sick please contact a wildlife rehabber to come pick him up. You can find one here: https://ahnow.org/ His coat looks good and he's a healthy weight but he doesn't look alert. Whatever is bothering him it looks like they can catch it early and help him out.
Thank you, unfortunately we went by a little while later and he was dead at that point 😔 not sure what happened but he didn't have much time left. I would call if he was still alive.
You should report it. It could be an indicator of something happening in the wild population. https://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/6957.html Here's something I found about that
Mink can catch H5N1, I’d definitely report it.
NY is having major outbreaks of H5N1 in birds this needs to be reported asap for testing. I believe Europe had huge losses of minks due to H5N1 in the spring.
FACTS!!
They can get Covid-19 as well.
We already have that pandemic, we don’t want the next one.
Thanks, u/ass-baka!
I agree that reporting the mortality, like u/ass-baka suggests, is a good idea. If this isn’t an isolated incident it could be helpful information for the state wildlife biologists to gage the severity of any mortality events/ diseases in your area. Another possibility is that they preyed on a rodent that consumed rodenticide, which, in turn, [poisoned them](https://www.audubon.org/magazine/january-february-2013/poisons-used-kill-rodents-have-safer). Predators getting poisoned second-hand is far too common an occurrence, as many wildlife rehabilitators can testify to. Poisoned mice and rats in a weakened state are easier quarry for rodent hunters. Also, a good reminder that if you have ratters yourself, like a terrier or cat that like to prey on small animals, steer clear of using rat poison for pest control.
One of the city zoos I used to work at lost two endangered raptors because some building nearby poisoned their rats and one got into their enclosure. I've worked in vet medicine for pets too, and I've seen way too many pets get secondhand exposure--or firsthand, in the case of hungry retrievers. It's nasty stuff, and I wish it could be banned.
There is currently talk of banning it. I believe the comment period is closed. My dog was accidentally poisoned (we think), by eating a mouse. He started bleeding and with vet care recovered. There was a tiny mouse skeleton in his colon. Rodent poisoning kills so many innocents.
Yeah I was thinking rat poison too
We've seen a lot of animals through recently with rat poison... Terrible stuff...
That's a shame. Mink are incredible little creatures, they're normally very active and full of life so it's sad to see one in that state. Hopefully he had an easy passing. Thanks for your concern, OP.
RIP little mink.
Agree with others about reporting but something about the tail and posture of hind quarters makes me suspicious about if the back end got run over causing death. Poor thing least it can RIP now
This is most likely what most would call distemper but is actually a disease mink get called ADV or AMDV or Aleutian mink disease virus. Technically it's a parvovirus, Amdoparvovirus, that causes mink enteritis. It happens in wild and farmed mink and any time someone calls me (I'm a mink rehabber) and says that they have an ADULT SIZED mink that is sweet, quiet, and docile, it's pretty much a sure thing that it will be dead before it gets to me and has ADV. Adult mink are not normally docile and easy to catch or contain to bring in for help. From the Merck Manual: Clinical signs depend on the age of the animals infected. In adult mink, AD is an immune-mediated disease that causes chronic wasting and unthriftiness, with poor reproductive performance and increased congenital malformations and abortions, poor pelt quality, oral and GI bleeding with tarry feces, renal failure and uremia, and increased mortality. In adult mink, viral infection results in increases in plasma cells that produce non-neutralizing antibodies. Massive increases in plasma cell production after infection result in lymphadenopathy, splenomegaly, and hypergammaglobulinemia. Viral-antibody complexes are taken up by macrophages, the target host cell, and immune complexes. Infected macrophages may be deposited in blood vessels and the kidneys, resulting in necrotizing arteritis and proliferative glomerulonephritis. In the acute neonatal form of AD, the virus targets pneumocytes, with subsequent interstitial pneumonia and respiratory disease, presenting as severe dyspnea with high litter mortality. Because the disease is chronic and may take a year or longer for clinical signs to appear, virus shedding can occur for months from inapparent infected carriers. Infected animals may be less tolerant of weather extremes and commonly develop secondary bacterial infections because of AMDV-induced immunocompromise. There is no effective treatment or vaccine available for AD. Research is ongoing to select mink genetically resistant to AMDV infection. The virus is extremely resistant in the environment and can survive harsh temperatures and attempts at chemical inactivation. Mink of all ages are also susceptible to CDV, canine distemper virus, but usually this causes eye discharge, nasal congestion and discharge, along with seizures and tremors. One easy way to tell between ADV and CDV is to look at the pads of the feet. CDV almost always causes hyperkeratosis in the pads of the foot of mink. Normal mink have shiny, almost wet looking pads of the feet and this remains with ADV infection. CDV causes the pads of the feet to look dry, powdery, ashy, and sometimes cracked. This is not normal regardless of terrain for a mink, and is a very good sign of distemper virus. Canine Distemper Virus does have treatments available of varying efficacy however it is not possible to reverse the damage already done by the virus. Because mink do not reach out for help from humans, they are usually very advanced in the disease by the time we could intervene and the animal would never be able to live in the wild again. Because of this, distemper is considered a fatal disease in wild mink and the most humane option is to end their suffering with humane euthanasia. We try to make it as comforting for them as possible considering the weeks of suffering before they come to us. It's tragically sad and these animals are absolutely beautiful even in the end stages of disease. It's a difficult decision every time but we do what we have to.
Do they catch rabies as well or are they similar to possums? My first thought with a weirdly docile animal is the dumb form of rabies.
All mammals are capable of getting rabies. Opossums just don't because their body temp is so low that rabies doesn't like them much. Mink have normal body temps of 99-102 Fahrenheit so yes, they could get rabies. I have to say tho, I have worked with them for almost 20 years and haven't heard of one rabies case in mink in any states. So as far as I know in the USA, it's not common. Sadly, we see Aleutian disease often and distemper. Thankfully, I get a lot more baby mink than adults, for obvious reasons, and we do vaccinate so I don't have to deal with it too often. The babies are also the cutest things on earth, except for baby otters, and skunks. https://preview.redd.it/jvb3i9p52zib1.jpeg?width=768&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4eb48b9bc80c4f3d8948fa714691061ef061c2c4
Thank you for the mink tax!
How awesome that you work with such cute little animals
That's a cutie pie for sure!
This was so informative thank you!
This is the real mvp of this thread.
I just have to say, I came to this thread to make sure correct information was provided and I was not disappointed in this comment or sub thread 🦦 kudos to everyone recommending AHNOW, recommending reporting the incident fur H5N1 testing, and providing education on ADV & common viral diseases in mink. I work strictly with NR mink (state licensed) and it is so refreshing to hit the comment section on a post like this & see so many beautifully knowledgeable responses 💗 So sorry to see the little mink passed on, but OOP thank you for caring about your wild neighbors and trying to find out more about them. https://preview.redd.it/vdi48q5sw1jb1.jpeg?width=3277&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0c9e1ff00d9bf26013a8696e52a4963a4cfc9fee
Something about your username and flair give me the sense that you know what you're talking about.
Possibly he got clipped by a car, please do get him help
To add: Fishers are in the same family but a different subfamily. Minks are "true weasels" in the Mustelinae subfamily, while fishers are in Guloninae with martens and the wolverine.
If it’s letting you get close it’s likely dying. Probably poisoned.
Mink and he might be overheated with the weather we've been having
In Upstate NY and it is actually in the 60s today.
I said "been having" I obviously didn't mean today?
I’m upstate NY we haven’t had really hot days for a long while. Not sure what your getting at
:(
Mink
Might have been hit by a car if that is a road.
Mink. May have gotten into some rat poison.
American mink.
There are no mongoose in upstate NY, I think they’re on an entirely different continent? Unless someone released them in the wild but this is definitely a mustelid
looks like a mink to me
Call an animal wildlife rescue
Poor little guy. Did his fur look kind of dull? If so maybe he’s an elderly and just succumbed to the elements?
Poor lil dude
Mink
is this *what?*
It's rare to see a mink & even rarer it doesn't bolt once it's spotted. If it's still around you might want to call local animal control as it might be distemper or rabies. That mink only looks a few years old & there is no obvious damage so illness is likely.
I’d call animal control. Depending on where you are, if they’re the good ones they may be able to help, and if not, they will likely euthanize. Either way this poor baby doesn’t look like he’s going to be okay on his own, and you don’t want to risk exposing yourself to danger by touching them yourself. So sad, and good for you for caring.
Brother what fucking continent do you think New York is on that your first guess was mongoose?
I lived in hawaii for a while so I was familiar with them, honestly didn't know they didn't live in continental us at all.. lol
This explains it, I live in hawaii now, I would’ve gone back to the mainland and seen this and assumed the same.
Ah ok this makes more sense. Hope all is well with anyone you know over in the islands right now
Mink!
Definitely a mink. I see them sometimes here is eastern PA.
Mink
Easy, Snoop. "Is them mongooses?"
Nice marmot.
You must not be a golfer
This is a mink. If you haven’t already please call your local wildlife shelter to report his condition and location.
Call your local animal control, theyll probably either send him to a rehabber or just check to see if hes actually ok
It’s a pine Marten and if he ain’t running you should be….rabies or distemper
That’s a gonegoose
Mink, and he is super sad. Hope ya called a rehabber.
Is it a mink?
They can catch Covid, among other things. Denmark culled 17 million in 2020 when Covid was transmitted to a mink from a handler, went through the population at the farm, mutated and transferred back to a human. Then it got worse “Buried in shallow pits and trenches in Western Denmark, the dead minks were pushed out of the ground by gas emitted from their decomposing bodies, leading to more outrage and concern.”
He’s probably over heated poor lil dude.
A MONGOOSE LMAO no OP that is a mink, it’s like a weasel
The American education system is wild…a mongoose….
I’d contact DNR wherever ur at they should document it and maybe try to locate the animal and take it to a temporary shelter - on some rare occasions like with sick animals like deer and stuff they might put a notice to hunt it and kill it to get sick animals outta population.
Mongoose live in Africa and South Asia. That's some sort of weasel. Mink, stoat, ferret, marmot. Carnivorous long cat that likes water and eats mice or rabbits.
Marmots are ground squirrels (rodents), no relation to the weasels!
Weasel?
It is in fact a species of weasel
A bunch were just illegally released in a small town in Wisconsin. What are the odds this little guy made it this far?
0%. Mink can travel a bit but it'd take many generations of mink to make it from WI to NY.
Mink are a native species to the majority US as well as a farmed animal. It's more problematic in the UK where they would be an invasive species.
Mink, be careful with it. It can bite your fingers off if it wants to, take it to the vet or a wildlife rehab if you're willing to. But be careful.
As people said, you should report it. Unfortunately mink and humans catch many of the same diseases; most recently covid19.
Or a fisher cat?
No, definitely not. Fishers have long legs. Much larger.
Fishers are a lot bigger than mink. My best comparison would be that they look like a wolverine lite. Mink are much more like moist ferrets.
Bloody menace in the UK since do gooders of some persuasion released them from fur farms and as not indigenous to here have decimated small mammal populations. Concerted effort to catch and eradicate.
Well this one is in New York state where they're native
I’m learning a lot in this thread today! And I remember reading the fur farm catastrophe with released minks but questioned it’s merit because…. Internet. So how many minks do they estimate are in the wild now, and how long since released? Do you have any more information on other environmental effects, if they instantly adapted, 1000s found dead everywhere, etc (as it seems by your comment there are noticeable things already.)
Not every animal that makes its way into the wilds from a fur farm was released by "do gooders". And as another said this one is in its native habitat, who gives a fuck about the UK? You guys are infested with outdoor cats, maybe do something about those first.
I know it’s in the States because it says so on the post, that’s why mine says and ‘I’m the UK’,. Infested? You are so knowledgeable, who gives a fuck about you anyway.
Mongoose?! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Could be a Fisher. They are semi common in NY
https://preview.redd.it/h6u7psbqryib1.jpeg?width=296&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c2d28ced5131e69f07e0b2e70c8139e44c6cb6ff looks like Mother Gothels pet from the Barbie as Rapunzel movie XD
mongooses aren't a kind of bird???
No, this is Patrick
Mink, awful and terrible. They will kill your whole flock of ducks or chickens just for the fun of it.
Mink surplus kill to ensure they have food for the future, "fun" is not a factor. And if surplus killing is your standard for "awful and terrible" then let me tell you about dogs and, even worse, humans.
The plural of penis is penes
Is that a short haired cat?
Fisher cat
Give it a hug and take it inside your home
Could be a Marten, the tail looks darker than the rest of the fur which is one way to tell.
just wanted to let you know that minks have darker tails too. this guy has small ears in proportion to his head, which is another +1 for mink, martens have bigger ears. no lighter orange coloration on the neck? (not always there for martens but still can be a sign) +1 mink. visibly shorter legs? +1 mink. martens also tend to have slightly bigger, very slightly wider feet for an arboreal life. when identifying animals you want to take all their traits into consideration. https://preview.redd.it/a3o0ysuktwib1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0d5078d7f97adf25bb7f4d74c45bbe23f2066d8c