An ermine in its winter coat, all white except for its black tipped tail, mounted by Chester Baum of the Backwoods Taxidermy in Chichester, has a new home at the Little Nature Museum in Hopkinton. Nancy Fellows, who has volunteered at the museum for the last 11 years, said that the ermine is a welcomed addition to the museum's collection of mounted mammals and birds. The ermine is the white phase of the short-tailed weasel, which is brown during the summer before it changes into its white winter attire.
Ermines are bold little carnivores that prey on rodents and other small creatures in fields and forests. Their major weapon is the lightening speed of their attack. With their sleek slender bodies and flexible backbones they can stealthily slip down narrow crevices in pursuit of their quarry. Retreat is never an option for these ferocious hunters that will often attack animals larger than themselves.
Active all year, ermines are found throughout northern North America and are nicely adapted for a harsh environment. Once they don their white winter apparel, they are well dressed for cold weather. They will sleep curled in a ball to conserve heat. Very curious, they busily investigate every nook and cranny and will often stand up to scan the area.
In winter they will hunt under the snow in the tunnels of small rodents. Ermines, like all weasels, have a bloodthirsty reputation, but their killing sprees are an important survival strategy. Because their stomachs are so small, they must eat smaller portions several times a day. For this reason they must stockpile their food for future use. One ermine's cache contained more than a hundred rats and mice.
They do not dig their own burrows but live in the dens and nest chambers of the rodents they kill. In turn, ermines are preyed upon by owls, martins and coyotes. This is when the black tip on its tail comes in handy, because the predator may target the black tipped tail and miss the vital organs of the ermine, which scampers safely away.
The ermine's stunning white coat has long been a symbol of royalty and has been used to adorn the luxurious ceremonial robes for medieval monarchs. In 1937 a total of 50,000 ermine pelts were sent from Canada to England for the coronation of King George VI.
Patrick Tate, furbearer biologist for the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, said that only 57 ermines were trapped in our state this past year. He indicated that the current price of a good ermine pelt is about $1 and there is little interest in trapping them.
It is believed that the shortening of daylight in the fall triggers the ermine's change of clothes from the summer brown to the winter white, which takes three to four weeks to complete. In the spring the increased daylight reverses the process.
Several weeks ago my wife opened our bedroom closet and showed me how she had put all of our summer clothes on the back hangers. She said it was now time for us to start wearing our winter clothes. This was before the big snowstorm of Oct. 30.
I wonder if the decreased daylight had prompted her to insist we make a change in our seasonal wardrobe, just like the snow white clad ermine.
