Water Rats Return!

While the RANDOM ANIMAL is digging herself out of a snowbank, you might be interested in the following story offered by ALL THINGS CONSIDERED: the case of voles vs. minks. Now in The Wind in the Willows, Ratty was a friend of Toad and Mole. But Ratty was apparently NOT of the Rattus family or of the weasel-ly  mustelildae family. Rat was/is a preferred arvicola amphibius. Not a rat, not a weasel, not a mink, but a VOLE. And story book voles are being eaten by American invaders. These escaped, as an animal might in a Kenneth Grahame story, from mink farms. But they have not endeared their wee little selves to Scottish locals. A mink, dead or alive, preferably dead, is their motto. For more on the competition of water mammals, please see Scottish Volunteers Hunt Vicious, Invasive Minks. Are mink kilts in the future?

Coming soon--Teachers' Unions and Coyotes