Mink on the Brink

So it was our last night in Iceland, and we were having a last Icelandic supper in the excellent Harbor Restaurant, right on the waterfront and a short (rainy) walk from our hotel.  Last chance for arctic char!  Last chance for reindeer!  So many decisions. . .

The place was so slammed that it took a long time to get our meals, and when they arrived we got the mains before the starters.  So we had a lot of time to gaze out the window, and at one point I stared through the glass and said, “Hey, is that a weasel?”

Well it was, sort of.  It was in fact a mink.  (I had thought minks were bigger, but they’re not.)

Back in the 1970s, the Icelandic government tried to improve the lot of poor farmers by converting them into fur farmers.  They mostly raised arctic fox, which aren’t native to Iceland but managed to cross over from Greenland all on their own.  They also raised mink, which were imported for the purpose.  Naturally some escaped, and now they’re overrunning the island.  Various attempts are being made to control or eliminate the population, which is of course impossible.

As for the fur farms, they all failed in the 1980s when PETA propaganda turned people against wearing fur.  Now the farmers are worse off than before, and the mink are eating their chickens.

So the mink went scurrying along the waterfront and out of sight, but subsequently reappeared carrying a mink only a little smaller than she.  Mom was moving her nest!

Her timing could have been better, because the marina was full of people.  Excursion and whale-watching boats were discharging their human cargo, and it was a Friday night with people wandering to restaurants and bars, and whole crowds of people were following this mink around.  Eventually she panicked and dived off the quay, still carrying her young.

Some time later she reappeared, this time with an even larger pup, nearly Mom’s size.

Again whole crowds of people were following her around, and at one point she panicked again, dropped her pup, and ran off.  The pup started to blunder around in a fairly incompetent way, and then Mom came back, grabbed the youngster, and again made off with it, again diving off the quay.  I looked for her later, but didn’t find her.

I understand why the authorities want to eradicate this animal, but that night my sympathies were entirely with the mink.