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They roam along streams, feasting on frogs, muskrats, crayfish and fish. They're a small predator, but quite efficient. Their sleek form allows quick movements and rapid attacks. But whether it's frogs or crayfish, stream creatures have evolved to better escape the mink's attacks.
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Which is bad news for England's stream creatures, particularly the water vole (pictured above).
On a recent trip to England, I saw one of these little mammals, which my brother described as a swimming guinea pig. They are, however, becoming an increasingly rare sight--the water vole is England's most rapidly declining animal.
Water voles are not adapted for the mink's hunting tactics, thus even a small number of mink can completely wipe out water voles from whole streams.
Removed from their native North American habitat, a mink becomes a pest.
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Henry knows his plants, and showed me some of his favorite wildflowers in various meadows. I did a double take, though, when he described the spotted knapweed as "quite a nice plant." I've heard knapweed called many things, but "nice" is not one of them.
Of course, in England, it is a nice plant, because native insects keep it in check. In Idaho, it out-competes native plants and turns whole hillsides into knapweed monocultures.
Research often demonstrates that a "balance in nature" is a human construct. Natural systems ebb and flow, and are in constant states of change. Non-native species will likely prove to become more in balance with their habitats over time--although it may be in time frames much longer than humans are accustomed to thinking.
That said, the deliberate introduction of non-native species is avoidable and usually unnecessary. The imbalance caused by these introductions is not worth losing water voles, or native Idaho wildflowers. --Matt Miller
The spotted knapweed photo is by Kirt L. Onthank, licensed by the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License. Other photos are courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
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