shocking invasive species!

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Erick Hunter

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
May 23, 2012
34
0
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North Jersey
So i live in northern jersey specifically bergen county and my grandfather lives 3 blocks away from me. in his backyard he has a 11,000g coy pond (with net canopy to keep away avian predators). my grandfather isn't an enthusiast at all he's just loaded and thinks the fish are nice to look at. so last fall everything goes into hibernation and come spring everything is gone, not one fish was left. no pieces, no bones, not a trace and that is unusual for the regular pond robbing wildlife.

weeks pass and my grandfather is asking one of the guys at the lfs about his problem, when the guy casually replies "mink", he says "yep about a hundred years ago there was a mink fur farm around here. it burned to the ground and seeing how minks can survive brutal winters they thrived here to this very day. just so happens they cleaned out my back two ponds as well this year"

so I've been trying to photograph the mink to get evidence for my self, for i have never seen a mink and especially not in new jersey!

anyone ever have an experience with an invasive species like that?
 
Mink are not only ones that eating fishes out of the pond....
 
The american mink has been around for thousands of years, here in iowa you see them often near water. They are kinda like half weasel and half otter. I would be surprise that it's not native to new jersey but not surprised if their populations have rebounded recently.
 
it wasn't raccoons cause the raccoons leave bits of fish everywhere as well as scat and plenty of evidence as to how they got into the pond aria. (fenced and netted off completely from animals and birds). the mink I'm told will slip right through the fence or under the net as they are similar to weasels and takes the whole fish away to eat in safety.... nothing new has gone missing so I hope they moved on to someone else's pond.
 
buy a webcam and get some motion activating software. I was able to do this with a creative cam with downloadable software from them a few years back.
my dad's pond was robbed by herons, but no mammals that we know of.
 
Erick Hunter said:
it wasn't raccoons cause the raccoons leave bits of fish everywhere as well as scat and plenty of evidence as to how they got into the pond aria. (fenced and netted off completely from animals and birds). the mink I'm told will slip right through the fence or under the net as they are similar to weasels and takes the whole fish away to eat in safety.... nothing new has gone missing so I hope they moved on to someone else's pond.
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Once again, mink are NOT ONLY ONES THAT EATING THE POND FISH. I've seen raccoons, foxes and cats slipped in the fence and leave no traces that they were here BUT these were SMART ONES, not the dumb ones that leave a mess behind.
 
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