Tidy Towns cull mink in environmental initiatvie

Athlone Tidy Towns, in partnership with Athlone Town Council, is assisting the National Park and Wildlife Services in control of the mink in the Callows area. It is part of a wildlife project which sees the group aim to preserve water fowl in the area, particularly the corncrake, which is a protected species. Seamus McCann of Athlone Tidy Towns told the Westmeath Independent this week that people had noticed a decline in water fowl in the area and the group decided to cull the mink as part of a project that will see it enhance the area with a walkway and with informative signs about the wildlife in the area. He explained that the mink is not native to Ireland and the mink in question are American mink, rather than European mink. Seamus explained that the mink was first introduced into Ireland in the 1950s when it was farmed for its fur, but once fur went out of fashion and the farms closed down the mink was released into the wild. The mink causes problems because it is a predator that kills birds and animals just for fun. Seamus added that mink hunts in packs and once they produce their young they stay together and hunt together. Mink like to hunt along the edges of slow moving rivers and canals and have been hunting ducks, waterhen, coots and corncrake in the Callows. "They are a huge threat to the corncrake," said Seamus. "It is a special area of conservation for the corncrake and it's one of the few areas in Europe where they are breeding." In a bid to cull the mink, the Tidy Towns group has installed Fenn Mark 6 traps to trap and kill the mink, which are legal traps. Seamus explained that this is just one of the projects that Athlone Tidy Towns is undertaking for 2011 and explained that having comprehensive wildlife areas is important for the competition.