Researchers and conservationists from around Europe and beyond met in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, in September 2024 to share their work on a special, and sometimes underappreciated, group of mammals – the mustelids. The European Mustelid Colloquium has been going for many decades and VWT is proud to play a significant part in its organisation and continuity. The conference provides a platform for mustelid biologists in Europe to exchange the latest research, discuss developments in monitoring methods and, perhaps most importantly, build face-to-face connections.

There are 12 mustelid species in Europe and Britain is home to seven of these – the badger, otter, pine marten, polecat, stoat and weasel, along with the invasive non-native American mink. This year we took the Colloquium to Romania to provide opportunities for more colleagues in Eastern Europe to attend and also to spotlight Europe’s Critically Endangered mustelid, the European mink Mustela lutreola. The species’ range has shrunk by 85% since the start of the 20th Century[1], and remaining populations are isolated, declining and threatened by the American mink.

The Danube Delta in southern Romania supports a small but important population of European mink for continued survey work and conservation action, but the species remains under threat. Shared knowledge and experience is power and the European Mustelid Colloquium provided a platform for bringing together European mink conservationists from across Europe. We heard from projects in Spain and France, research on the wider environmental impacts of American mink, and also discussion on a variety of successful control methods.

Professor Andrzej Zalewski discussed the impacts of invasive American mink on prey behaviour and competing predator behaviour

The Colloquium was enjoyed by delegates from 19 countries, and played out over two days of presentations and a field trip, with evening events including a scientific poster session, and the conference dinner. The raffle at the conference dinner raised over €450, which will support future travel bursaries for students and others who require support to share their research. This year we were able to support a delegate from Nepal, who shared his observation of mustelids and shed a light on how rich in biodiversity Nepal is, but how understudied mustelids are there. We also included a photo competition, which was judged during the Colloquium and won by Romain Beaubert for their photo of European mink.

European mink ©Romain Beaubert

A number of VWT staff attended the conference and were able to showcase our two current citizen science projects (the National Polecat Survey and the Irish Stoat Citizen Science Survey); share the challenges of pine marten recovery in Ireland; and discuss our innovative monitoring methods for pine martens. We’d like to thank our organising partners — Romanian Wilderness Society, Fauna & Flora and the University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Cluj, for helping us pull off another successful Colloquium!

Watch this space for news about the 36th European Mustelid Colloquium!

More information can be found here: European Mustelid Colloquium (european-mustelid-colloquium.org)

Katherine McBride, VWT’s Carnivore Conservation Officer

[1] Mustela lutreola (European Mink) (iucnredlist.org)