“We implanted him with an intra-abdominal transmitter.
The next 48 hours, we are going to follow it so as not to lose it, ”explains Pascal Fournier, director of the Research and Study Group for Environmental Management (Grege).
This veterinarian is preparing to release a young European mink on a bank of the Charente river, north of Angoulême.
Classified as critically endangered, the semi-aquatic carnivore is one of the three most endangered mammals in France, along with the bear and the rhinolophe de Méhély, a bat.
The most optimistic estimates put its population at 200 individuals in metropolitan France while the European mink once skimmed the rivers from the Atlantic coast to the borders of the Urals.
Homes in Charente and Charente-Maritime
Fragile population centers remain today in Estonia, Spain and… in the departments of Charente and Charente-Maritime, “the last two viable bastions of the species” in France.
Since 2017, a program called "Life Vison" has been trying to save this mustelid, discreet by nature, with dark hair and a white muzzle.
The objective is to better understand the species while mapping the remaining population nuclei.
These data also make it possible to identify wetlands and habitats to be protected.
The “Life Vison” is endowed with 4 million euros.
"Half is donated to the territory to restore the environment and develop structures", details Ingrid Marchand of the LPO (League for the protection of birds) which coordinates this program.
Seventeen mink captured and banded since 2017
Seventeen mink were captured during the two previous campaigns conducted from September to March to avoid trapping females during the breeding season.
All were ringed and some fitted with a transmitter like this 830 gram male, born this summer and operated on under anesthesia by Pascal Fournier.
“The range of this transmitter is 500 meters.
Sometimes it takes a day to find a mink.
But it is essential to characterize its lodging and to know its ecology ”, decrypts the veterinarian.
In the natural environment, the life expectancy of this slow-to-reproduce mammal does not exceed two years, specifies Pascal Fournier.
A serious handicap coupled with the risk of predation - from foxes or dogs but also from invasive and competing species such as the American mink or the raccoon -, not to mention road collisions.
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"A risk that we do not take lightly," says Ingrid Marchand.
We have already identified two individuals run over by vehicles near Rochefort… ”Formerly trapped for its fur, the European mink mainly suffers from the continuous destruction of wetlands.
"Nothing is lost, we must not lose hope", wants to believe Pascal Fournier by releasing his protege.
The protectors of the European mink, who take turns every day to locate it with their radio antennas, already know that it will be able to travel several tens of kilometers in search of a female.