the.com/mink
a luxury coat that escapes the farm and devastates whole ecosystems
means a small, sleek, semi-aquatic weasel-like carnivore prized for its dense fur, which is farmed for coats and has become an invasive predator where it escapes into the wild.
from From Swedish 'menk' or 'mänk', the name for the animal, which English borrowed in the late Middle Ages — the word arrived attached to the pelt as much as the creature, the trade carrying the name across the North Sea.
- feral menace
- escaped American mink wreck European waterways and wildlife
- dense fur
- up to 24,000 hairs per square centimeter
- covid carriers
- Denmark culled 17 million over virus mutations
- swim hunters
- dive underwater to ambush fish and crayfish
- musky name
- scent glands rival the skunk's chemical arsenal
american mink — mustelid native to north america, now invasive in europe causing decline of native european mink populations
european mink — critically endangered species in russia and eastern europe, fewer than 1,000 individuals remain in the wild
sea mink — extinct species from maine and canada, hunted to extinction by 1880s for its valuable fur