Weasel in the Woodpile

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While humans are the only animals capable of premeditated murder, you can't argue that weasels don't sometimes indulge in instinctive overkill. Audubon reported a classic example of just such a mustelid massacre (he watched more than birds), writing that he had "known forty well grown fowls to have been killed in one night by a single Ermine."

If you suspect a weasel of raiding your hen house, search out and plug even the tiniest coop entrances—such as knotholes and cracks. If that doesn't work, you'll have to resort to trapping the raider—live or otherwise (as dictated by your conscience or lust for revenge, whichever is the stronger).

Unlike the least and short-tailed species, the long-tail is a notorious chicken killer (it's quite possible that Audubon's "Ermine" was in fact a white-phase long-tail). But even the chicken-stealing long-tail benefits the farmer in the long run, since it destroys rats that would otherwise prey on eggs and newborn chicks, and limits the number of crop-damaging mice.

Just how efficient a mousetrap is the weasel? One field study conducted in a national park netted these hungry statistics: In 37 days of observation, a mother weasel brought to her litter of kits a total of 148 rodents, including 2 moles, 3 rats, 4 ground squirrels, 27 gophers, 34 chipmunks, and 78 mice. In all, a single weasel will kill from 500 to 1,000 prey animals—mostly mice—a year.

In the final analysis, then, that weasel hiding in the woodpile is neither monster nor magician, but the original (and still champion) better mousetrap.

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