POLECAT

Polecats, weasels and stoats are hunters of rabbits. The rabbits build burrows and then leave them almost immediately. The polecat, weasel and stoat not only hunt rabbits but also use the rabbit's burrow as their home. They move in and out of their burrows. The polecat has an area of two and half sq miles (6.5 sq km) and defends it fiercely. Since it can't cover it in a night's hunt the polecat goes to the nearest burrow at the end of the night.

The only time it stops roaming for a while is when the mother has young ones. Then it stays in the same place for about two month where she builds a nest and the youngsters have a chance to grow up.

The polecat has dark guard hairs on the top and underneath is a creamy-yellow woolly under-fur. Its size is 15 in (38 cm) from head including body and has a 5 1/2 in (14 cm) tail.

The polecat is a pure killer and kills for the sake of it. Even when it is not hungry or hungry anymore it still kills. Therefore, they caused great damage on farms. The farmers and gamekeeper's number one enemy brought them down to almost extinction. By trapping it the hunters drove it to extinction all over the British Isle.  The only very few small areas are in Wales where polecats can still be found.

The animal uses a very bad smelling scent as defence and to mark its territory. It hunts at night and mainly moves on the ground. It is a good swimmer but a bad climber. Its diet is rabbits, small mammals, game birds, poultry, frogs and eggs.

A ferret is but a tamed polecat and has all creamy-white fur. They will breed again with the wild polecat when they escape.

The European polecat has the same characteristics and moves through the rabbits’ burrows to find any of them.

BLACK FOOTED FERRET

An uninvited lodger in prairie dog burrows is the rarest mammal, the black footed ferret. It used to live in North American but was hunted out of existent. The black-masked hunter was bred in captivity and re-introduced to the wild in 1991. These ferrets live in prairie dogs burrows and feed on their unwilling hosts. The slim lined body makes it possible to hunt them through their labyrinth.