The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) would like to learn more about Florida’s three subspecies of mink, and it is reaching out to the public for help.

“We know that mink are more likely to be found in and near salt-marsh habitat on both coasts of Florida but the reports people provide will help us pinpoint where we do research,” said Chris Winchester, wildlife biologist with the FWC’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in a press release issued by the commission this week.

For reasons unknown, mink appear to be absent from the freshwater streams, rivers and wetlands of central and northern Florida, the commission website says.

The effort includes an on-line mink sighting registry that includes a mapping tool. A similar Google Maps tool was used in a FWC public outreach effort to locate fox squirrels. That effort was quite successful. We covered it back in October 2011.

Read the FWC press release here.
Read the additional information on the study here.
Find the mink sighting registry with Google Maps tool, here.

Photo: Mink looking out of den. Photo credit: Patrick Leary, courtesy Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.