Sammy. He's been my best bud for the last 11 years. I won't even go into how he got here.
He was an outside Kitty, until winter (11 years ago), then he was an 'in the garage' kitty, then an in the house cat, then back in the garage because my wife didn't like cat hair on the furniture. Then, she thought he was scratching her vehicle (he liked to be on it), so he became my shop cat. He never had any issues with any of the moves.
Dude used to sit on my shoulders when I watched the Browns games in the garage. Shot gun blasts didn't phase him in the least.
He did, and still does, walk me from the house to the barn, or the barn to the house - when it's warm enough that I let him out at night.
Over his years, he's had some run ins with other animals. According to the vet, some of those battles he won (when his nose was all butchered) and some he's lost (like, when his hind leg got torn up - vet said if a cat has injuries in the back, it was running away - injuries on it's face, it was attacking).
So, 4-5 weeks ago, on my way to the shop in the morning, I noticed a dead animal. Too long to be a mouse, too....well, not a rat. I had no idea what it was. Dark brown on top, and white on most of its belly.
I also noticed Sammy, who met me at the door (he had been outside - it wasn't too cold) had fur sticking out of the sides of his neck. Now, winter isn't the time for animals to be shedding. I found it odd.
Day or 2 later, I noticed a bump on the back of his neck, at the base of his head. I checked it out. It was a hole, roughly the size of a pencil eraser. Odd. I put neosporin on it. As the days went on, it got a little infected, and he started losing some hair at the site.
A friend said he may have a botfly. I researched the heck out of botflys. I even tried minor surgery on Sammy. Nothing.
So, as it's been healing, I've been wondering exactly what it was that got him.
Tonight, randomly watching videos on youtube, I came across one about Stoats/short tailed weasel/ermine.
Who says randomly watching videos is a waste of time? The Stoat in the video I watched looked identical to what is still laying in my yard.
I did some reading, and yes, they can and will attack rabbits, cats, even small dogs. I read that they will jump on the back of an animal that is bigger than them, dig their claws into the sides, and bite the back of the neck. This all added up to me.
So, I found this video, which shows (although it's a pet cat and a pet stoat) exactly what I'm sure happened to Sammy.
The good news is, Sammy is recovering very well. He's alive. The stoat is still laying in the yard, dead. And, Sammy has the experience to take on any others he comes across. Experience is a great teacher.
That little bugger is like a mini Tazmanian Devil.
There is no level of sucking we haven't seen; in fact, I'm pretty sure we hold the patents on a few levels of sucking NOBODY had seen until the past few years.
Think mini ferret. They are cute little critters and very cat-like themselves as pets. But they are also wild apex predators in their weight class. The same applies to common cats when they are feral.
No. These things, in the wild, which this one was, are meat eaters, and very aggressive from everything I've read about them.
But, in the vid I posted, that's what makes me sure the stoat got Sammy. I mean, it's dead, so I know there was one here, and the video shows exactly how they jump on the back, use their front paws to dig in around the sides of the neck, and bite at the back, base of the neck. Exactly what happened to Sammy.
Or just nail it's hide to the wall of your barn as a tribute to your cat's badass-ness, and also as a warning to any other weasels who come into your yard with bad intentions.
Could. I use to do that with deer tails. But, flies.
I feel leaving the dead carcass where it is is fair warning to other vermin.
Sammy seems to think so also.
No joke, Sammy patrols these 2 acres like a boss. Only time he leaves our property is to go under our neighbor's deck on occasion.
As I said earlier, he's lost a few fights with other cats, but he's won many also. We don't much see other cats around anymore. There IS a wild one across the road and ditch, but it won't approach our property.
Well... then up until very recently the possum would be a fitting mascot, then.
There is no level of sucking we haven't seen; in fact, I'm pretty sure we hold the patents on a few levels of sucking NOBODY had seen until the past few years.
But it IS what I envision he did to the stoat after he got it off his neck. (and this stoat is about the exact size of the one that got Sammy. Just glad Sammy didn't encounter a full grown one for his first stoat kill)
But it IS what I envision he did to the stoat after he got it off his neck. (and this stoat is about the exact size of the one that got Sammy. Just glad Sammy didn't encounter a full grown one for his first stoat kill)
May you Rest In Peace Mr. Stoat.
Let this sink in..... On 12-31-23 it be will 123123. On the flip side, you can tune a piano but you can't tune-a-fish.
arch..you might try notifying ODNR and see if they might be interested in your stoat. Sometimes they catalog kills of animals that are not common in some parts of Ohio, just to have an idea how a species might be spreading, especially if a particular species is rare to your area.
I had a way smaller guy jump on me like that once. One of the worst butt whoopins I ever took. He had an unopened can of beer he was pummeling me with. By the time I got away from him I had a lot of speed knots on my noggin and wasn't looking for more.
Your feelings and opinions do not add up to facts.
Arch.....be on the lookout/keep your eyes peeled. "Not Good" news. New species of Stoat.....
New ermine species found on Southeast Alaska island March 29, 2021 by Angela Denning, KFSK - Petersburg
This Southeast Alaska ermine was captured on a video this winter by Farragut Farms near Petersburg. It is a different species than the Haida Gwaii ermine recently identified by scientists. (Courtesy of Farragut Farms) New genetic research is expanding the family tree of a small weasel. A new species has been identified on an island of Southeast Alaska and some in British Columbia. It’s called the Haida Ermine, and it’s one of three main ermine species in the world. And scientists who studied the mammal believe there could be other animals that are also unique to this area.
When Jocelyn Colella was studying to become an evolutionary biologist, she thought she would research something big — maybe large cats or bears.
“I originally wanted to work on big, charismatic carnivores but there’s a lot of people doing that already,” she said.
So instead, she chose a tiny carnivore known as the ermine. It’s a small weasel with a mouse-like head, big eyes and a fuzzy brown summer coat that turns white in the winter. But besides being cute, they are extreme hunters. They mainly feast on mice and voles but can also take down rabbits and chickens.
Colella has studied the small mammal through different universities. She’s now curator of mammals at the University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute.
In the field, she’s studied dozens of ermines. “I was studying ermine all over. Honestly, it was a Holarctic investigation,” Colella said
With modern science techniques, Colella has also been able to study the ermine’s genome or its genetic makeup. In the lab, she could examine tissue samples that had been collected by scientists all over the world. They had been frozen in vats at -196 degrees Celsius.
“Liquid nitrogen cryo vats that are just full of hundreds of thousands of tissues,” said Colella. “And you can say, ‘Well, let’s see what ermine look like from here,’ and you can pull out a piece of tissue and subsample it and sequence its genome.”
Colella compared samples from North America, Asia, and Europe. It took years – she had a lot to work with. The Museum of Southwestern Biology in New Mexico had collected tissues for decades. Using a computer program, she compared the ermine’s skulls. She found that there were three main species: one in Eurasia, one in North America and one found only on Prince of Wales in Southeast Alaska and Haida Gwaii off the coast of British Columbia.
“Yep, full species, like new species, never-before-recognized mammal,” Colella said.
She studied samples from most of the islands in the region, but none were the same as those found on Prince of Wales and Haida Gwaii. Colella says it’s probably because the islands are located in a place that wasn’t always covered in ice during the glacial periods. She says this ermine may have originated 375,000 years ago.
“These groups were interbreeding, and then this population got stuck on these islands and then a lot of time passed, more ice, and they just slowly became their own species,” Colella said.
Colella believes the Haida ermine probably isn’t the only species specific to the area. She says the marten — a larger weasel — is also showing the same indicators. She says these islands are creating new species because they are isolated with specific environmental conditions.
“We just have no idea what’s out there and we really need to be using these new techniques to better understand the diversity of these islands,” Colella said.
Colella sees the new ermine species as more of a beginning than an end. She says it’s just another example of why people need to look harder at other animals in the area.
“A lot of people think that we know all the mammals that are out there but I think that’s far from the truth,” she said.
Natalie Dawson agrees. As a wildlife biologist she spent 20 years researching mammals on several islands in Southeast Alaska, including weasels.
“I was the first one to take a deep dive on the genetic distribution across many of these different islands comparing between species,” Dawson said.
Colella’s work builds off of Dawson’s research.
Dawson says Prince of Wales Island is a stable environment for a species like the ermine to adapt and agrees there are likely other unique species that just haven’t been identified yet.
“I think what’s significant about it is that in Southeast Alaska, if we’re finding that kind of diversity in mammals, you can imagine how much distinctiveness there probably is in the insects and the plants on each of these islands or even in certain populations on certain islands,” she said.
The study appears in the scientific journal, Diversity and Distributions. Funding for the research came from the National Science Foundation.
