Minnesota’s busiest place for mink records is a river running through its biggest city. The Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, which follows the Mississippi through Minneapolis and St. Paul, holds 91 records, and Hennepin, Dakota, and Anoka counties lead all 68 counties. A second, far wilder cluster comes from the north woods: Superior National Forest, Chippewa National Forest, the Boundary Waters, and Voyageurs National Park, where lakes, bogs, and rivers run for miles with few people around to see what moves along them.
Spring and midsummer peaks
Nearly all of Minnesota’s 693 records are iNaturalist observations, 692 in all, so the calendar follows when people meet mink along the water. July carries the most records and April comes close behind, in step with spring mating and the midsummer stretch when young mink are on the move and trails are busy. Reports thin out from November through February.
Minnesota has no NatureServe state rank for the mink yet, though it’s a native animal recorded from the Twin Cities suburbs to the border lakes.
Full species profile
