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MOUNT RAINIER NATURE NOTES
Vol. VIII September, 1930 No. 10


Mink 'saves' young

The Pacific Mink lives, usually, along the streams or borders of ponds or lakes so it was with some surprise that we encountered two Mink on the dry, stony trail below the Longmire Camp Grounds. It was still more unusual to note that they were a pair and that they were traveling at a very moderate speed. This slow rate of travel was so puzzling that it served as sufficient inducement for our following them into the forest.

We lost sight of them for a moment and then were astounded to note one of these animals standing almost erect and looking in our direction. Then, as we halted, the mink approached us rapidly as if it intended to attack. But it was not until it had approached to within a few feet of us that we noticed the reason for its strange antics. Concealed behind a log was the half-grown young of the mother mink which had failed to follow the mother and whose absence was probably not noticed until the mother had left it some distance behind.

nape of the neck, and ran off into the woods half carrying, half dragging it as a cat does a large kitten. Although we gave pursuit she soon lost us in the thick brush of the forests.

Charles Landes, Ranger Naturalist.


and a 'rescue' a la Chipmunk

Quite often we see other mammals of the Park carrying their young to safety. Recently we had the rare opportunity, upon one of our Nature Hikes, of watching a Chipmunk carrying one of her youngsters along a beam in the Community House at Paradise Valley. The mother grasps the skin of her young at the belly firmly in her jaws, the youngster wrapping its fore and hind feet about its mother's neck until it would seem that the mother had procured a stylish fur neck piece. In that manner she proceeded cautiously, though with rapidity, farther removed from curious and interested spectators.

(C. F. B.)

Mink 'saves' young

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12-Jun-2001