Wisconsin’s occurrence databases hold 1,416 mink records, one of the higher tallies among mapped mammals in the state, gathered from riverbanks, marsh edges, and lakeshores across nearly every region.
Riding the marsh at Horicon
Horicon National Wildlife Refuge, one of the largest freshwater marshes in the country, sits in the glaciated farm country of southeastern Wisconsin. Its dense cattail stands and muskrat colonies give mink both prey and ready-made dens: minks here take over abandoned muskrat burrows and hunt muskrats themselves, along with frogs and marsh birds, working the water’s edge in the same bounding, arch-backed lope they use on any Wisconsin shoreline.
From kettle lakes to Northwoods streams
Kettle Moraine State Forest’s tangle of glacially carved kettle lakes gives mink the same shoreline structure they need everywhere: root tangles, brush piles, and hollow logs to den in near water. Farther north, the lakes and rivers threading the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest offer the same setup on a wilder scale, with mink hunting fish and crayfish through open water and switching to voles, rabbits, and birds once ice slows the fishing.
Status in Wisconsin
NatureServe ranks the mink S5, secure, in Wisconsin, and it’s native to the state. Its records follow water nearly everywhere in the state, from the largest marsh to the smallest kettle lake, wherever a shoreline still has enough cover to hide a den.
Full species profile
