American mink possibly spotted on Long Island for first time in 31 years

An American mink was captured on a trail camera in Suffolk County, marking a rare sighting if confirmed. Long Island naturalist Peter Janow reported that he believed to have captured the mink on a trail camera he set up in Northport near the North Shore just after midnight on August 4. The image shows the animal appearing to carry a bird in its mouth. Janow stated that this would be the first sighting of the American mink on Long Island in 31 years. The American mink is a small, semi-aquatic carnivore in the weasel family, typically weighing between 1.5 and 3.5 pounds and hunting various small animals in and around aquatic environments, according to the National Wildlife Federation. Janow, a retired Marine Corps pilot and founder of Long Island Nature Corps, has spent about eight years tracking wildlife with trail cameras in the Northport and Greater Huntington area. His interest in finding the mink began about three winters ago when he found tracks he believed belonged to a mink while searching for river otter tracks after a snowfall. After reviewing a memory card from a trail camera that had not been checked in months, Janow discovered two photographs and a 15-second video that appeared to depict a mink. He sent the findings to Mike Bottini, a wildlife biologist at Seatuck Environmental Association, for confirmation. Bottini confirmed the sighting as an American mink. The last reported sighting of the animal on Long Island was in 1996, although no photographic evidence exists from that time. Bottini noted that colleagues studying river otters often capture mink on trail cameras at otter latrine sites, but during a yearlong study at 10 such sites on Long Island in 2013, no mink were recorded. Bottini mentioned that while much of the mink's preferred habitat, including wetlands and salt marshes, still exists and is protected on Long Island, the reasons for their apparent decline remain unclear. He pointed out that trapping could be a complicating factor, as the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation currently permits the trapping of mink, gray fox, striped skunk, and long-tailed weasel on Long Island. The appearance of the mink coincided with the sighting of the world's largest manta ray in Long Island waters, which was observed feeding in the waters of Jones Beach State Park in August.