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Animal Id- did I do the wrong thing?


Sciurus
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In a cage trap u could easy have left it in the trap or covered trap and took it with u while u ID'd it.

 

Dunno where u are but seen some pretty big polecat marked ferrets, mind I was given a monster hob, was bloody useless as so big.

Be hard to prove it wasn't an escaped/feral ferret.

Given how rare they are would be more likely.

 

I see mice just typed the same😀😀

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I did think of taking it home to I’d it but frankly it smelt so badly I didn’t want to put it in the car. It did have an attractive face.

I later looked up mink on the the web and found one photo identical to the animal I had trapped so if I had taken it home I would have shot it (by wrong ID). Are mink similar sized?

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They're all the same family, mustelids.

 

Like anything u get big and small 1s, mink can be all sorts of colours but I've never seen 1 marked like that before.

But u do get 'polecat' ferrets that are marked exactly like that.

That big hob I had was exceptionally big and would be as big as many small/med mink. Bloody thing was the size of some rabbits.

I imagine the only 100% certain way would be a genetic test

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That is polecat , whether it is a wild pure poly or a polecat ferret is difficult to tell. Possible someone has lost it ferreting at some stage or an escapee.

It appears like a Jill to me (30 odd years of keeping my own line of working polecats) but for obvious reasons could not be sure.

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6 hours ago, 7daysinaweek said:

That is polecat , whether it is a wild pure poly or a polecat ferret is difficult to tell. Possible someone has lost it ferreting at some stage or an escapee.

It appears like a Jill to me (30 odd years of keeping my own line of working polecats) but for obvious reasons could not be sure.

Is the perfectly correct answer.

And you did the right thing by not shooting it.

I quite like that ferret musk smell . Years ago , our vet(a huge Irish man,  with an even huger beard ) , would rub ferrets around his beard as he liked the smell so much . He was a xxxx vet , but he was cheap , and you always came home laughing 😅.

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Should have and could have.

Should have because Polecats are real killers of Water Voles and other mammals and aquatic nesting birds along with Kingfishers etc.

Could have despite the protestations of the blind followers of the BBC (and presumably Packham), it is perfectly legal to kill a Polecat caught accidentally in a trap.

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1 hour ago, JDog said:

Should have and could have.

Should have because Polecats are real killers of Water Voles and other mammals and aquatic nesting birds along with Kingfishers etc.

Could have despite the protestations of the blind followers of the BBC (and presumably Packham), it is perfectly legal to kill a Polecat caught accidentally in a trap.

I don't think it's as straight forward as that, it is very much open to interpretation under the law and like the op I'd play it safe, there's nothing wrong with doing so.

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This must be a first for Pigeon Watch - everyone in agreement it was a polecat! 

I was wondering why I had caught it with a bait of peanuts and sunflowers, then I remembered I had been chucking the squirrels I had caught in the trap 10ft away into the bracken. I guess the polecat had been attracted to the corpses. Oddly, this small wood suddenly stopped catching greys, I wonder if the polecat had been spooking the greys away and the polecat had detected the smell of squirrel in the trap?

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4 minutes ago, Sciurus said:

This must be a first for Pigeon Watch - everyone in agreement it was a polecat! 

I was wondering why I had caught it with a bait of peanuts and sunflowers, then I remembered I had been chucking the squirrels I had caught in the trap 10ft away into the bracken. I guess the polecat had been attracted to the corpses. Oddly, this small wood suddenly stopped catching greys, I wonder if the polecat had been spooking the greys away and the polecat had detected the smell of squirrel in the trap?

Let him keep doing his good work!

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They don't half stink! I once caught a male pole cat in a fox trap after the dead pheasant I had in there.

And a few weeks back I ran back into the house from the garden to screams of BEENNNNNNNNN THERES A FERRET IN THE HOUSEEEEEEE. 

I thought they were imagining it and it was a little cat or maybe an overly brave mink or something. Turns out it was the kids ferret from next door that he'd lost 2 years ago! It had a quick run round the utility room, fortunately the dogs were shut up, got scared by their barking and made a right old stink and then disappeared up the garden. I caught it a it later on and returned it home...where it escaped again a week later 😂

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13 hours ago, scotslad said:

Dunno where u are but seen some pretty big polecat marked ferrets, mind I was given a monster hob, was bloody useless as so big.

My big hob was great, you could put him down once the Jill's had been through with his collar on and dig out any kills, he was like a puppy he was so placid and happy. 

Only problem was when he barrelled into the nets, he would just hang there like a puppet with its strings cut, happy days 👍

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4 hours ago, Mice! said:

My big hob was great, you could put him down once the Jill's had been through with his collar on and dig out any kills, he was like a puppy he was so placid and happy. 

Only problem was when he barrelled into the nets, he would just hang there like a puppet with its strings cut, happy days 👍

I can see him now K, I have had a few hobs like Him. Great for pushing a reluctant jill off a deep stop ender.

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56 minutes ago, 7daysinaweek said:

I can see him now K, I have had a few hobs like Him. Great for pushing a reluctant jill off a deep stop ender.

Me and a mate could throw him back and forth over hedges,  and twice he pulled rabbits out of holes, he would probably have been great if I'd have used long nets not purse nets, such a character, and he was called Charlie😁

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