SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – “We’re a little worried about the weasels,” said Roland Kays, a research professor at North Carolina State University and scientist at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences.
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Why is he worried about weasels? Well, mostly because it’s a bit hard to keep track of them, per a press release from the university. These cryptic mammals have been in decline since the 1950s, and if they are hard to track it’s hard to tell if their populations are dwindling further.
Mustelids – a group of animals that includes weasels and ferrets – play important roles in ecosystems, according to Kay’s research. Some have even argued that they are an ideal species for gauging the impact of climate change. That is, if we can get them out of hiding.
“We don’t see them very often, but it’s difficult to tell if they’re actually gone or if they’re just so sneaky that we can’t find them,” said Kay. “We decided that we needed to better understand the best method to detect them. There wasn’t a great consensus on that.”
So, Kay and a team of researchers decided to find better ways to spot these small, slender carnivores that are rarely caught on camera. They sought to find the best lures that would entice weasels out of hiding.
To that end, they baited a total of 122 clusters of four camera traps across 14 states (a total of 486 camera traps), with random combinations of four baits and three scent lures in the winters of 2022 and 2023. Overall, they found that red meat was the preferred treat for mustelids, according to a study published this week in the Wildlife Society Bulletin.
“There is a huge variety of scent lures available, and trappers often make their own from all kinds of ingredients,” Kays explained. “As it turns out, however, just having a chunk of meat works the best,” and adding a bit of salmon oil was an even bigger attraction.
With this new understanding of what mustelids love to snack on, the researchers can be more confident of the accuracy of weasel monitoring surveys, Kays said. He hopes to use the findings to get more robust data on the “least weasel” – described as the “most worrisome” of the weasels. It is the world’s smallest carnivore, making it especially difficult to track down.
“Now that we have an understanding of the best ways to lure the weasels, we can be more confident in the findings of our surveys,” he said. “When we have sites where we don’t detect them, we can be much more assured that they aren’t just in hiding, they’re really just not there at all.”
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