American mink are semi-aquatic hunters, diving and swimming through Montana’s wetlands and waterways to hunt fish, crayfish, and small mammals, which ties the state’s thin 23-record showing tightly to water: the marshes at Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, the shoreline of Flathead Lake, and the Missouri River corridor.
Records concentrate in September and December, with almost nothing the rest of the year, too few and too scattered to describe a real seasonal pattern beyond confirming when a mink happened to be spotted or trapped. NatureServe rates the species S4, apparently secure, in Montana, and its solitary, mostly nocturnal habits make it one of the harder waterway predators to document even where it’s genuinely common.
Full species profile
