Forvie National Nature Reserve in Aberdeenshire is home to one of Scotland’s largest ground-nesting seabird colonies, with thousands of black-headed gulls, Arctic terns, Sandwich terns, and little terns returning each year to breed.
Protecting sites like this is essential. If an American mink were to enter the area and target the nesting birds, it could cause devastating impacts, including high mortality, breeding failure, and even complete abandonment of the colony.
Staff at the reserve have been monitoring for American mink for several years and a few weeks ago mink prints were found near the ternery. Shortly after this, two mink (a male and a female) were captured by a project volunteer on the River Ythan, about 4 km away from the reserve
The decision was made to set up a mink trap on Forvie NNR in an effort to catch any mink that could be in the area. By taking action now, we’re helping to reduce the risk of predation by this invasive non-native species and giving the seabirds the best possible chance at a successful breeding season.
Thank you to the staff at Forvie NNR for their help monitoring this trap. We’d also like to say a massive thank you to our many dedicated mink volunteers in the River Ythan catchment, and across the project area, for all their hard work monitoring our network of rafts and traps. American mink can cover large distances so it is essential for any control project to operate on a landscape-scale to be effective.
