Due to the higher quality of farmed American mink, European mink are not trapped for commercial purposes as much as they once were.
The European mink was largely in the fur trade during the first half of the 20th century and were trapped for commercial purposes.
As of 2014, there is no data on present trade. Some recent illegal fur trade to neighboring countries from Romania has stopped because the fur-markets in these countries have crashed.
The higher quality of farmed American mink (Neovison vison) fur makes it highly unlikely that trading could become an issue in European mink conservation, though the European mink is still caught in small numbers in Russia by trappers hunting for American mink.
• Image | © Jo-Anne McArthur, Some Rights Reserved, Unsplash
• Sources | (Shalu, 2001; Maran, et al., 2016; Nowak, 1999)
