The Weasel Paradox: How An Efficient, Adorable Creature Was Demonized
Greetings!
Wow! How did we make it past the mid-point of April already? Granted it’s been a long winter for many of us, but still, time seems to be flying! We are excited that we’ll soon have our RV de-winterized so we can start taking some trips. Our plan is to get Max and Jasper acclimated to Buttercup (our RV) so we can take some longer trips with them this year. Our dog, Kola, is fine with my daughter taking care of her, but the cats don’t do well without their mamas, so if we are to travel, they need to go with us. Nope. Not spoiled at all.
This Week
We celebrated my son’s 21st birthday on Monday since he was on a beach trip on his actual birthday. Here’s a picture of me and my two kiddos, now 21 and 18. I’ve got two adults now. Weird - and wonderful. :)
I finally completed the stained glass piece I started for my son back in the fall. It got too cold in the garage to work much on it, so has taken months. It turned out not as good as I’d hoped but better than I feared for a while. This is only my fourth piece of glasswork, so I have to remember to be patient with myself.
I learned a lot from this piece, especially about what happens to copper tape when left on pieces over the winter. You end up with oxidation and also adhesive problems. Ugh. This is also the last piece I’ll do without my grinder, which will make things much easier in the future. I wish we had more sun today to really show the beauty of the glass.
Full Speed Ahead
This was inspired by the weather on the day I drew this. We went through the sun/rain/hail cycle at least 5 times. What started out as a beautiful day - ended up a roller coaster of weather. At least it wasn’t boring. :)
What About…?
Stoats
“What the heck is a stoat?” you might be asking yourself. What if I called it an ermine, a short-tailed weasel, or a Bonaparte weasel? Feeling on more familiar ground? Stoats go by all of these names, with location and weather being responsible for some of the variations.
In the UK they are called stoats to distinguish them from a smaller type of weasel. It’s fair to call them weasels, and highly accurate to call them Mustela erminea, which is their scientific name, but that would sound pretentious in most situations. I like the name “stoat” so for today, I’m sticking with that one.
Though stoats somewhat resemble squirrels, they are not rodents. They belong to the family of mustelids which includes badgers, wolverines, otters, and more.
Stoats are fairly small having bodies that range from 5 - 12 inches (13 - 30 cm) long with a tail roughly half the body length. They only weigh about 6 - 9 oz (60-200 g). The males are larger than the females.
An interesting comparison from the National Park Service is that the female’s body is about the same girth as an average tube of toothpaste.
Stoats are considered extremely ferocious, effective hunters. They can take down animals much larger than they are, such as rabbits and chickens. Their main prey is small rodents but they will eat a variety of other small animals, eggs, and insects if necessary.
Stoats have to work hard to keep up with their energy needs. They have a high metabolism and need to eat about 40% of their body weight each day. That is almost as much as hummingbirds require. Can you imagine?!
Stoats are brown with a white underside and a black-tipped tail. Many subspecies of stoats are able to change their fur color to a striking white during the winter. White stoats are often called ermine.
Robes embellished with white weasel fur were once reserved only for royalty. Of course, they didn’t call it weasel fur. It was called ermine. Much more befitting a royal, yes?
Stoats do an interesting series of maneuvers referred to as a “war dance” or a “death dance” that distracts and perhaps even hypnotizes their prey so they can attack. The dance involves lots of fast erratic movements and even complete flips.
There is some speculation that the crazy movements are due to nasal parasites rather than a hunting behavior, though given the consistency of the dance, plus its presence in pet ferrets (also in the family Mustelidae) as a play behavior, this seems unlikely. Overall, the behavior appears more related to excitement.
Exploring More
The Weasel Paradox: How An Efficient, Adorable Creature Was Demonized
“He really weaseled out of that one.”
“That guy’s such a weasel.”
Those types of sentiments illustrate that weasels don’t have the best reputation. Overall, public opinion seems to indicate that weasels are sneaky, untrustworthy, and generally pretty bad guys. Where does all this animosity for what is arguably a supremely adorable creature come from?
After a good amount of research, I found the following seem to account for a great deal of the hostility:
Chicken Farmers - the battle between chicken farmers and weasels is so well known it’s almost cliché. Weasels make their way into chicken coops, eat the eggs and sometimes kill the chickens. Actually, “kill” is an understatement, according to those who have seen it. It looks like a senseless slaughter with nearly decapitated chickens dragged all over the coop, possibly even piled up. Obviously, any creature doing that to chickens is not endearing itself to farmers.
Though this may seem like vicious serial-killer-like behavior, it’s more about survival and instinct. Weasels’ preferred diet is small rodents like mice, voles, and moles, but can include rats, frogs, rabbits, birds, and more when their favorites are not readily available. It’s an easy task for a weasel to slither through a small hole in a coop or use another animal’s tunnel to gain easy access to eggs. They crack the shell and lick up the nourishing insides. They do not suck the eggs, as popular myth often portrays. They don’t have the physical ability to suck.
Weasels may then move on from the eggs to hunt the chickens. The chaotic movement that ensues as soon as the hunt begins is thought to trigger an instinct to hunt and kill everything in the area that is moving. This leads to the slaughter of far more animals than the weasel can eat. This seems wasteful but biologically makes sense.
Due to their very high metabolism, if there is an abundance of food, weasels will create food caches in their dens so they can save it for later. Farmers who find chickens in corners of their coops, or piled up, are witnessing a part of this caching instinct. It might be, if given open access, they would come back for the chickens later to take to their dens.
Once word got out about murderous, egg-sucking weasels, it was easy for people to further malign the character of weasels.*
Theodore Roosevelt - On May 31, 1916, U.S. President Roosevelt said in a speech, “One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called weasel words. When a weasel sucks eggs it sucks the meat out of the egg and leaves it an empty shell. If you use a weasel word after another there is nothing left of the other.” His use of this phrase helped popularize the concept of “weasel words” - those that are ambiguous and lack any real meaning. Over 100 years later, this phrase seems to be making a comeback, again reinforcing negative beliefs about weasels.
Walt Disney - Walt Disney Productions played into the stereotypes of weasels being deceptive, thieving, no-goodniks in the 1949 movie, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. It later went on to feature weasels as antagonists in several Mickey Mouse cartoons, as well as feature films. Prime examples are Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Mary Poppins Returns. In 1955, Mr. Toad’s wild ride, based on the movie above, was one of the opening day attractions in Disneyland, complete with the bad guy weasels. The influence of Disney in our culture is vast and not to be underestimated.
Short-Sighted Problem-Solvers in New Zealand - In the 1830s-1850s rabbits were imported to New Zealand for food and sport. That was the first mistake. Having no native mammals other than bats and marine creatures in New Zealand, the rabbits had no predators and soon their numbers were staggering, threatening to decimate all farming. During the early 1880s, some big-time farmers got together and decided to import stoats and weasels to kill the rabbits since stoats are very effective at hunting rabbits. What could possibly go wrong?
It ends up that the stoats vastly preferred the abundant birds of New Zealand over rabbits. Over the years, this has contributed to the extinction of several species of birds, as well as an ongoing threat to others, including the iconic kiwi. I can’t imagine many New Zealanders taking kindly to creatures endangering their unofficial national emblem.
Stoats and weasels are effective predators who are considered a major threat to the country’s biodiversity, not just because they hunt native birds, but also lizards, chickens, guinea pigs, and more. Though stoats sometimes hunt rabbits, because of the abundance of other food sources, plus the rabbits’ rapid breeding cycle, rabbits remain a serious, extremely costly environmental and agricultural threat in New Zealand.
These four factors go a longs ways toward explaining why stoats and other weasels have such a bad reputation. Despite some humans’ desire to portray them as wicked, they certainly don’t have evil intent. Even when hunting, they are just animals trying their best to survive. Don’t we all do the same? Besides, are these the faces of evil monsters? I think not.
* According to Backyard Poultry, weasels can actually be beneficial on farms because they reduce the number of garden-damaging animals like mice and rabbits. They also act as a food source for animals such as foxes, coyotes, and hawks, distracting them from farm animals. There are effective ways of keeping them outside of chicken coops.
Main Resources
If you have enjoyed this issue, please click on the heart at the bottom or top of this message. I appreciate knowing you are out there! ❤️
Have you ever seen a stoat or any kind of weasel? Let me know in the comments.
Have an enjoyable weekend, and remember to be aware of the natural world around you. I always feel better when I take the time to really be present. I hope you do, too.
Peace,
Dakota Duncan
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ahh those cute little weasels... we had martens take over our attic for a while. The noise was incredible. We could hardly sleep at night as they were active after 11pm and all through the night!
I always read your stories because they are a break from my usual feed of politics and business. You write well and pick interesting subjects. Thanks for a break in my day! ps- the grinder will be a real blessing!