Owl Acres is a busy place after the sun goes down. Owls and skunks are out hunting, raccoons are out foraging, and mice and rabbits are out and about looking for supper. All this activity goes more or less unnoticed most of the year, but when there’s a new snowfall, suddenly there’s a whole story laid out on the snow. Tracks of mice, rabbits, deer, raccoons and other nocturnal visitors combine with the tracks left during the day by the birds, dogs and people. Examining the tracks, we wonder who this one belongs to. Consultation with a professional mammologist suggests that it’s possibly one of the three species of weasels that live in Iowa—probably the smallest, called a least weasel (Mustela nivalis). The two larger species are known by their tails—the short-tailed weasel and the long-tailed weasel. We know that they’re present in Iowa, so it makes sense that they’d cross Owl Acres occasionally. The fact that they’re nocturnal and quite secretive makes them hard to spot.
The least weasel is only about nine to ten inches long and weighs around two ounces. It’s said to have more powerful jaws and a stronger bite force for its size than lions, hyenas and bears. You wouldn’t want to get bitten by one! Neither would a rabbit. These fierce little hunters can kill a rabbit five to ten times their own weight.
The least weasel has a long, thin body with short legs and tail. Its head is long and flattened, with short rounded ears, big dark eyes and lots of whiskers on its snout. Paws have five toes with nonretractable claws. In winter the least weasel turns completely white, and in the summer its back and sides turn brown while its paws and underside remain white. Larger weasel cousins have black tips on their tails but the little guy’s tail is all white.
Inline photo from Wikimedia.org by Kevin Law Alt text: Furry critter with brown back, white underside, short legs, long, erect neck and triangular head, looks intently at something out of frame. Least Weasel.
Weasels initially are thought to have evolved in Europe and Asia. A couple hundred thousand years ago when the Bering land bridge was ferrying Siberian escapees across to North America, the least weasel joined the parade. Since then they have evolved to thrive in specific habitats and today several subspecies are extant in America. The least weasel’s small size and long thin body is ideally suited to diving into the burrows of small mammals like mice and chipmunks, and their small size allows them to live under the snow or to take advantage of tunnels under leaf litter and grass.
Did you ever weasel out of doing the dishes when you were a kid? Have you ever known a sly, untrustworthy person that people called a weasel? There’s a reason that this little hunter has such a bad rap that his very name has become a verb. He’s so thin and agile that he can shoot down a rabbit hole and scoot out again, rabbit in tow. Or he might go another direction—you never know with these sly little fellows.
I learned to dislike weasels when I was a kid growing up on the farm. We had outside cats, and it seemed that every time they had kittens something came along and killed them. Dad said it was the weasels that did it. In fairness to the weasels, though, they do an excellent job of keeping mice and rabbit populations under control.
The weasel’s reputation dates back thousands of years. The Greeks believed that the weasel was the only creature that could kill the basilisk, the terrible and murderous serpent-king who could kill a human simply by looking into his eyes. The basilisk was thought to be a combination of a rooster, a serpent and a toad. According to Pliny, the stench of a weasel could kill the basilisk, although the weasel would perish in the effort.
In fact, weasels are in the same family as the striped skunk, and they do have glands that secrete a foul-smelling substance which they use for scent-marking territory or when they’re startled. I’ve never smelled one, but the odor must be remarkable!
Least weasels also perform a peculiar dance known as the weasel war dance consisting of leaps and twists and some growling. The reason for these dances is unclear. They form a hierarchical society with a dominant male who will fight viciously when their dominance is challenged by younger males.
Weasels have had their ups and downs since European trappers and settlers moved onto the Iowa prairies. Trapped as fur-bearing animals, along with larger and more lucrative species, weasels populations fluctuated during the first half of the 20th century with the highest number of weasels trapped and sold in Iowa reaching over 7,000 in the winter of 1936-37. Weasel fur never made it into the fur fashion top spots, but their affinity for chickens encouraged hunting. Their Iowa population dwindled to the point that hunting them became illegal in 1976. By 1987 though the DNR reopened season on weasels. None were reported until the winter of 2009-2010, and the most recent data from 2019 indicated that only one weasel was harvested that year. This might mean that the populations are low, or it might reflect the preference of trappers who target weasels for keeping and processing the weasel pelts. At any rate, weasels are not considered endangered species. The trapping season for weasels starts on November 3 and ends on January 31 with no bag limits.
Weasels are fairly safe from the trappers, though since their pelts aren’t worth much. That’s a good thing for the weasels. We don’t have any baby kittens on Owl Acres, but we do have our share of mice, voles, and rabbits. I am content to let the weasels keep the mice and rabbits under control.
Feature photo by Author. Alt text: Small mammal tracks in stark white snow. Best guess is Least Weasel