2024Estonian Fauna - The European Mink - First Day Cover

With less than 5% of its original habitat remaining, the European mink is one of the continent’s most endangered small semi-aquatic carnivores, whose main diet is frogs and fish. The European mink prefers shady forest rivers and streams with alder stands along their banks. In the first half of the twentieth century, the European mink was a common species in Estonia, but habitat loss and excessive hunting led to a decline in numbers. However, the final blow to the species is attributed to competition with the American mink, which escaped into the wild from fur farms. Although the European mink was last seen in the wild in Estonia in 1996, a mink population has been established in Tallinn Zoo to conserve the species and restore the natural population. In 2000, the reintroduction of the European mink to Hiiumaa began, extended to Saaremaa in 2022, to create more diverse opportunities for the species to survive in natural conditions.