Meet Slink the mink, rescued and mistaken for a ferret

It walks like a ferret and talks like a ferret, but Exploits Valley SPCA staff found themselves eye-to-eye with amink during a rescue efforton Saturday.

Aptly named Slink, the mink found his way through a back doorof a Grand Falls-Windsor homeover the weekend and helped himself to a chunk of ham from the owner's garbage.

"He totally does, to the untrained eye, look like a ferret," Sarah MacLeod of the Exploits Valley SPCA told CBC's Newfoundland Morning.

The residents of the home initially thought Slink was a runaway house pet.After using a live trap to capture the critter, theybroughthim to their local SPCA shelter for safekeeping until his presumed owners claimed him.

Staff at the SPCA thought the same of Slink that he was awhite and fluffy family pet who had somehow escaped into the Newfoundland winter.

Definitely not a ferret

Staff had no idea what they had on their hands until they posted a picture of the animal on the shelter'sFacebook page. Comments began pouring in roughly 300 of them, according to MacLeod identifying Slink as a mink.

"Mind you, this was after I've picked him up, and I've had him in my arms, and I was patting him and everything, thinking everything was fine," MacLeod laughed.

"He was nervous, but he wasn't acting any different. I thought he was just upset that he had been thrown outside."

MacLeod believesSlink likely had some sort of human contact before their meeting, because he's quite friendly as opposed to being a wild, defensive animal.

A warm home

Slink's journey won't be ending at the SPCA, however. From here he will be getting a medical test, and through the help of the shelter andMink International Rescue and Recovery, Slink will be going to an approved home to live out the rest of his days. He willnot be up for regular adoption.

MacLeod said the mink rescue group says Slink is a form of domesticated minkthat has been selectively bred for a hundred generations, making them very different from their wild counterparts. The animals will find surviving in the wilddifficult on their own.They can be kept as pets, albeit a more challenging exotic one.

"They know exactly what to do, how to set up these rooms and everything. This is all stuff I've learned in the last couple of days and it's actually really cool and fascinating how they can do that with these little creatures," saidMacLeod.

"He's not the same as a typical wild mink, that's for sure."

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