Haley Bouma from STV News recently met with Project Officer Mirella, her mink detection dog Bonnie and volunteer Jon to speak about our American mink control project.

American mink have a devastating effect on native wildlife. They are an invasive non-native mammal in the UK and highly efficient predators - often killing more than they need to survive. Native wildlife are vulnerable to mink (particularly water voles and ground nesting birds, such as seabirds) and are not well adapted to cope with invasive predator. Haley Bouma from STV news, Aberdeenshire, met with Project Officer Mirella to find out more about American mink and what the Scottish Invasive Species Initiative is doing to tackle them.

Haley from STV news interviews Project Officer Mirella		Mirella and Bonnie - the mink detection dog

Mirella has some extra help when it comes to tracking down mink - in the form of her mink detection dog Bonnie! When Bonnie was a few months old Mirella started training her and she is now excellent at sniffing them out, helping Mirella to identify areas where mink have been and to locate the best spots to deploy a trap. Mink are very elusive and can be hard to track so this addition help is very useful to identify the best trapping locations.

Bonnie wears her 'Mink detection' harness when she is working		Volunteer Jon demonstrates how to use a clay monitoring pad

Volunteer Jon joined us for the interview and spoke with Haley about why it's so important to tackle American mink. Jon lives in north Aberdeenshire and is passionate about protecting Scottish wildlife and conserving native biodiversity. You can listen to the full interview below.

To find out more about Bonnie you can read Mirella's blog about her training and early days as a mink detection dog.