Mink Happens! How to deter this elusive pond predator!

Mink Happens! How to deter this elusive pond predator.

10/11/2016

Deterring the elusive pond wolf, or the mink, is a topic we typically speak about in the spring with our customers here in Morris County, NJ. After this first sentence I am sure you're asking why? Let me give you the "skinny" on how this works!

"The snow is melting, the sun is shining, and it's time to get that pond open and running! (Typically Mid March to the beginning of April) We arrive at your home to perform the annual pond cleaning and Esteban and Gabriel begin pumping the water out while preparing the holding tank to house your fish during our cleaning process. At first there are no signs of any fish, but hey we see this many times, they are hiding and will soon come out of their hiding spot so we can safely transfer them to their temporary holding tank. The water level in the pond is quickly dropping, we are looking for fish to net and transfer, nothing! The pond water is now down to about 8" of water and by now we would certainly see fish! Still NOTHING! We look around check all the crevices we are accustomed to fish hiding in and still NOTHING! There is not a sign of any fish and there are no carcass's , NOTHING!"

Many years ago this happened to us and we had no idea what had happened. We were stumped! We reached out to many in the industry and finally figured out what had happened, The Pond Wolf attacked the pond! At first we thought, this is crazy we don't have mink here! Surprise to us, WE DO!

Years after this, we saw this occur once or twice every two to three years, until the winter of of 2015-2016. This year alone we had 8 customers lose every fish in their ponds. Yes, all of them, not one left. By now you're probably think, what in the world am I going to do to keep this predator called a mink away from my fish.

How can a Mink do this?

Mink and Muskrats (they do this to) are extremely good hunters, swimmers, and very agile. Nothing will keep a mink out of your pond, nothing. We are just telling you this from experience. They will slide under a net, over or under an electric fence, and right into the hole in your ice you are keeping in it to keep your fish healthy for the winter. Once they find a food source, they don't stop taking from that food source until it's dried up. That means every single fish, and the mink doesn't care how big or small those fish happen to be. They come for one, drag it out of the hole in the ice, and bring it back to their den. They are food hoarders and will store their food for later use. Many times, a mink will ravage a pond within 24 hours, there will be nothing left.

We have also seen this only happen during the early winter to very early spring months. That's not to say it can't happen any other time of the year, we just haven't seen it.

What can you do to prevent the Mink attack?

Dye the pond! This is the only thing in past years we have found that has worked. Get yourself some black pond dye and dye the pond once a month. How is this going to help? I know it sounds ridiculous, right?
It helps by making the pond dark, which inhibits the mink or muskrat from seeing the fish. It must be done once a month during the winter as the dye does dissipate over time. Doing this does not guarantee a mink won't get your fish, but we have had amazing success deterring the mink just by adding dye to the pond.

How can A Frog's Dream Help?

Traditionally, we only recommended this to customers who have had the problem in the past. Due to the massive increase in mink invasions last year we are HIGHLY recommending everyone do it, just as a precaution. In an effort to make it easy for everyone we are offering two different services to help you keep the mink away this winter.

The first service is hands off for you and great for those who leave the state for the winter months. We call it our Winter Pond Care and MINK Prevention Package. We will visit your pond once a month from January through March. At each visit we will check the hole in the ice (shovel snow off to keep hole if necessary), check aeration function and deicer function, check fish if possible, and add a dose of dye for the Mink Prevention. Included in this is emergency aeration/pond deicer replacement. If at any time your aerator or deicer stops functioning we will come out and either fix or replace with no service call fees. (product replacement fees may apply)

The second service we are offering is for those who are more hands on. We will provide you with dye for your pond for the winter season, provide you with dosing instructions, and (this one is extremely important) you will be put into an email list and sent a reminder email every month to remind you to apply the dose of dye.

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20 Comments

Frank Almquistff

2/9/2017 09:56:00 am

We are in Kingston NY. Had a mink attach a few years ago in the summer. Thought someone was stealing the fish. Bought a game camera but no pics of anything bad. Came by again in mid Jan during the day. Caught the devil on my game camera. Trying now to trap it. Took all the small fish, tore up the face of one large, 20+ inches who died a few days ago. The other large one (almost 20 years old) had his her face badly scratched as well. Not sure it will survive. Pond is netted with bird netting and held to the perimeter with rocks, but he still managed to get in. No koi until the mink is trapped. Will buy some cheap fish for bait and keep trying to trap

Valerie Lieberman link

6/23/2018 12:35:50 pm

Hi Frank. We've lost five koi in the past three weeks. Thought we were dealing with heron, which has been the case before, but when we fortified the pond with heron deterrents that worked previously we still kept losing fish. I contacted Clay and he gave me the sad news about this new predator, the mink. Our latest effort includes a lattice barricade across the entire pond, covered with netting and surrounded by large rocks around the perimeter so that there are no gaping spaces. Just put it in place last night and my three remaining koi are still swimming around happily. Fingers crossed it will continue to work. Good luck!

Clayton Graba link

2/9/2017 10:01:31 am

Hi Frank,
I know the problem on the east coast seems to be getting worse and worse. They are truly the hardest predator to control and capture!

I had one visit my pond a few weeks ago, here is a link to the video I took: https://youtu.be/3gwEv1aezk8

Wishing you nothing but the best in capturing this critter and thank you for taking the time to tell your story!

Clay- A Frog's Dream

Bob Miller

1/18/2018 10:01:36 am

My parents installed a koi pond this past summer, in Indiana. About three weeks after the pond was winterized, they realized the koi were gone. We found koi scales on the bottom of the pond and knew something killed the koi. They hired a trapper and the trapper was able to capture two mink. I was reading the information on your site and you said to dye the water to help prevent the mink from seeing the koi. Does your company sell this dye?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Bob Miller

CLAYTON GRABA link

1/19/2018 11:19:56 am

Hello Bob-
Thank you for reading our blogs and information!

Dye does help, however these are sneaky little guys and so hard to completely deter.

As it turns out, we are not an online retailer, local. Where are you located? I may be able to recommend a place for you to purchase the dye. You can buy pond dye anywhere on the internet or from a local pond store.

Just make sure you get the black dye, and we use 1.5- 2 times the recommended dosage.

Have a great day and thanks again.

Clay

Jeff

2/9/2019 04:33:45 pm

I lost 10 koi to a mink , I net my pond and now have two traps and he has not come back . I have four or five big koi left . Is their anything more I can do or any products that I can get? Was thinking sonar , can’t find one that plugs in or you can keep outside in the winter. Thanks !!

2/10/2019 03:24:55 pm

Hi Jeff-
I'm really sorry to hear you have been attacked by this frustrating pond nuisance!

We have been using pond dye on many of our clients ponds that have had an issue in the past or just want to prevent the problem. While not fool proof the dye has helped dramatically in keeping loss to the mink minimal.

I would recommend adding black pond dye to the pond. The only other option we have heard of and not done is a bit more difficult. You could actually create a "cage" in the pond for the fish. You would need to drain the pond, use a cage such as a dog cage and put the fish in the cage, then fill the pond back up. You have to make sure the openings in the cage are small enough that the mink can't get in there.

This is a very tough predator. Good Luck and If I can be of any other assistance please let me know.

Joni FRANCISKOVIC

8/5/2019 03:17:33 pm

Hi. I am planning to dyes my pond black with 1 1/2-2 dose per month this winter -early spring as I have had all 11 of my 8 year old fish taken in 1 night in early spring 3 years ago. My question is will it kill my dormant waterlilit's and other pond plants by dyeing pond during winter.?

Clayton Graba

8/5/2019 03:43:03 pm

Joni- What a great question!
As it turns out, I don't have a definitive answer for you, however I can let you know what we have experienced doing this.

We have been adding the dye now to my pond and numerous clients ponds with no ill effects on the lilies. We do however drain the pond in the spring to get rid of the dye effects, typically before the lilies come out of dormancy. You will have some residue that will make the pond appear "bluish" for a while but it will dissipate over time.

If you feel as though you may need to leave the dye in longer and your lilies are in pots, you could remove the lilies from the pond in the spring and put them in a smaller container of water until you are ready to do the water changes to dissipate the dye.

I hope this helps!

joni franciskovic

8/7/2019 09:50:42 am

Perfect. I do plan on keeping the dye till may 1st then do a 80% water change using my chlorine filter to add water. Thanks so much

Joni Franciskovic

8/17/2020 08:46:11 pm

Im happy to say that the black dye double dose worked for me againt the minks during Nov - April. And it did not harm any of my plants. 1 large water change removed the dye in May. Thank you fòr this great article that helped me so much.

Samantha

8/17/2020 08:26:59 pm

Hi. Just reading about putting black dye in our pond to deter the mink. We just discovered 2 of them in our pond and they have eaten all but 3 of our fish. Does the black die make it so you cannot see the fish? Also, where can we purchase the dye. We live in Boulder Colorado.

8/17/2020 08:50:27 pm

No you wont be able to see your fish . You can see them when they come to surfice to eat. I only needed to use it from Nov to April which was my danger month though. By May , the dye disipates with water change You can get black pond dye on amazon or ebay. Look for concentrated ones

Todd Rueckl

12/24/2020 01:05:26 pm

We took a different approach. Since our koi pond had an irregular shape it made it almost impossible to put up a physical barrier to keep mink and other predators out. So we decided to put the fish in a confined environment. I bought an 8’ piece of 18” diameter plastic culvert pipe. I made mesh screens for each end that can slip in from the top. When the fish start going dormant, we round them up and put them in the culvert pipe and close up the ends. Worked great the first year! For the second year we did a slight re-model and added skylights (screens) to the top so that we could see the fish and they would have a little daylight. Total cost was about $120 and a few hours of my time. We store the pipe in the backyard during the summer months.
If you would like photos, I would be happy to send them.

Sherrie Savelli

1/13/2022 10:59:43 am

Todd I would be interested in seeing photos of how you did that. All of my koi have been killed 3 times now and I am deflated and desperate to see what others are doing.

Kathy

3/17/2021 04:49:21 pm

Dye is an interesting idea. Here' our tale of woe...

We removed the styrofoam insulation sheets we use to help insulate our three Wisconsin koi ponds this past Saturday (3/13/2021). We discovered NO fish in our two natural style ponds ZERO. We still found we have/had 4 fish in our (mostly buried) deep rectangular tank pond. About 40-50 Koi that we curated and cared for over 25+ years are all gone. Several of them were more than 20 year old, raised from 4-5" fish to big healthy koi. We are totally devastated.

Then the next day we had a fresh snow here, Sunday afternoon. Monday morning MINK tracks everywhere! The tracks look a lot like squirrels, We didn't see tracks in/out of the ponds in the earlier snows. Not until we saw them Monday morning was there mink sign. And it is still her!. Apparently changing the pond surface had it checking out everything. We followed its tracks all around the out-buildings, etc - possible den areras. We were able to put screen covers on the rectangular pond Monday afternoon - there are still at least 2 fish... We're setting live traps (to avoid killing other animals...) however, this/these mink will not survive trapping.

We're trying to reconcile the loss, decide the risk to fish in the future, and figure out how to prevent this from happening again. I chatted with a vendor of Electric Net Fencing today to ask about snow. I was told it won't hold up/work properly in winter snows, so that easy idea is out.

Thank you for the suggestion of pond dye. One question, when we do water changes here the pond water ends up on the lawn (septic system /no sewer system). Will the dyed water discolor lawns, or light colored gravel driveway, etc?

Again, thank you for the various suggestions. We may re-stock (lightly) and plan to catch/move fish to the rectangular tank pond in the fall for winter. We can secure that pond. But, the current loss is fresh and heartbreaking... still have to deal with this loss emotionally - and kill mink.

Bob

6/20/2022 08:02:46 pm

Will a pond alarm work to rid mink? It’s motion sensitive and is fairly load.

Frank Almquist

6/20/2022 08:47:02 pm

Doubt a pond alarm will work. A mink can enter and exit a pond without making a wave, once in the water they are like a fish, just quicker and more agile.

Arnie Burch

8/24/2022 06:29:47 pm

We converted a spring fed, circular 500 gal. cement cattle trough to being a koi pond. It is above ground with twenty inch high walls.We have racoons and herons. Ten years ago a pair of minks slaughtered half of my fifty young quail in their holding pen. The shipment had been housed there its second day and night. Morning was a dissaterous shock.
While trying to relocate a mink caught in a live trap it escaped while being transferred in the bed of my pickup truck. There is barely any space to squeeze out through. It had to have manipulated the closed door from the inside. That could only have been the achievement of a high IQ.
Because of my experiences I had a welded heavy metal screen/grid lid made for the top of the tank. Due to needing higher clearance a row of long, heavy bricks were placed on the top of the five inch wide cement tank wall. Heavy bungee cords fastened to the rim of the custom made metal lid and hooked to pegs in the ground to hold and anchor the set up. Seven years had gone by without incident. The koi were medium large to quite large. One morning koi did not come up for feeding. A brick under the metal grid was missing. It had gone into the water.
The rest of this story matches the tales of so many others.
I never thought of dye, but we do have ample plant cover.

William olson

9/4/2023 03:43:08 pm

Have anyone used wolf urine to keep the mink out of the koi pond.. I too have lost 17 large koi in the month of July. Not sure it was a mink or not but I am leaning that way. My pond is too big to put a net but I did dye it black. I just put in now 25 5 inchers thought they are small and would have a better chance I hope.

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