Monday, February 20, 2006

Our killer cat

Here's a picture of the weasel that our cat killed in the garage last week. The cat was out in the garage, and when he came in he smelled TERRIBLE, like the worst case of body odor that you've ever smelled. So, dad went outside to see what he could have gotten into, and found the weasel laying there. I ran down to take a picture of it, then I edited the picture and tried to take out the blood, so you could just see the weasel. So, if the picture looks funny that's why, its edited. It was about 8 inches long. I've seen weasel tracks around the house for a while now, but we'd never seen it. The goose had been fighting with something a lot lately, we'd heard him beating his wings and making a fuss, but didn't know what was bothering him.

Weasels are really brave. They only get about a foot long or so, but they will take on any size creature, they even charge at humans (one charged mom in the back yard a couple years ago, but she dispatched it). We get the short tailed weasels, also called ermine. I'm going to put some quotes on here from the Alaska fish and game site, about weasels, then I'll include the link so you can see more if you want. So, anyway, the cat smelled SO BAD that we had to give him a bath, which he didn't appreciate at all, in fact he ended up climbing up my back and putting a big whole in my shoulder, which is healing nicely. :) But it was kinf of fun. This is the third weasel we've had here that we've gotten rid of. It was a kind of fun thing, though not so much for the weasel I'm thinking.

"The least weasel well deserves its title of the smallest living carnivore. It reaches a maximum length of 10 inches (25 cm) and a weight of 3 ounces (85 g). The short-tailed weasel's tail is one-fourth to one-third of the total body length while the least weasel's tail length comprises only about 15 percent of total body length. During all seasons the tip of short-tailed weasel's tail is black. The tail of the least weasel contains only a few black hairs. Weasels must have almost daily access to rodents in order to survive. They prefer mice. When mice are not abundant, weasels will also take shrews, pikas, birds, fish, and insects. Short-tailed weasels can also kill young snowshoe hares. Weasels have few natural enemies of significance except possibly the horned owl and marten. Both species are apparently agile enough to occasionally catch weasels. Hawks, foxes, coyotes, and lynx also kill weasels, but such occurrences are rare. As a last resort, weasels can emit an odor which is as pungent as that of a striped skunk. Weasels are persistent and fearless hunters. They will boldly confront animals much larger than themselves. They've been known to attack humans who come between them and their food."

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