Fern Glen Essays
Stoat Fellow!
by Judy Sullivan

Last Saturday afternoon seemed unremarkable. I was busily engaged in folding laundry and plotting ways to avoid further domestic torture when a high-pitched shriek pierced the stillness. Glassware splintered and stacks of serviceable underwear toppled to the floor. I flung open the front door to find my husband brandishing a short quarter-split log of maple at the woodpile next to our porch. "Has La Boehme come to Chatham?" I demanded. He sheepishly dropped his weapon, tried vainly to recover his lost machismo, and beckoned me to step out of doors and remain quiet. Considering the temperature, this was an act of monumental courage and wifely devotion on my part, especially since he refused to disclose the purpose of this Arctic exercise. The moment was frozen in time until there was a motion near the base of our small mountain of firewood. A violently twitching nose, bright shoebutton eyes and a sleek white body punctuated by a black tipped tail. "Sonya Henning's tutu!" I breathed. (We're big fans of NPR's Car Talk.) "You little weasel!"

We have three species of weasels in NY, long-tailed (Mustela frenata), least (M. nivalis), and my backyard buddy, the short-tailed (M. erminea), also known as an ermine, or stoat. You'll recall traditional fairy tale drawings of kings in ruby-red robes, trimmed in white fur with infrequent black spots. That princely pelage belonged to the short-tailed weasel in its winter coat. Or, more accurately, out of it. However, as no self-respecting monarch would call for his pipe, his bowl and his weasel-trimmed robe, the euphonious "ermine" is substituted. Once the comparatively drab brown coat of summer grows in, the elegant ermine once again becomes a simple short-tailed weasel.

A weasel beats a cat any day for keeping unwanted rodents in check. They're fierce hunters with voracious appetites. They need to be. Long and slender, built for swift passage down narrow subterranean passages, they lose heat rapidly and have a metabolism that leaves coffee jitters in the dust. With a resting heart rate greater than 360 beats per minute, weasels need to eat more than a third of their body weight every day simply to stay alive. They're known to successfully hunt animals larger than themselves, most notably rabbits and game birds. Unusually foresighted, they're one of the few carnivores to keep a pantry, stockpiling extra mice and voles for days when prey is scarce, weather inclement, or there's a good movie on TV.

Weasels enjoy several brief, rather vigorous courtships in summer. (I trust that further elaboration is unnecessary...) However, in both the long and short-tailed weasels, the resulting embryos don't begin to grow in earnest until the lengthening days of spring trigger them to attach to the wall of the womb. After this, gestation is approximately a month, with the blessed event occurring in April or early May. There are usually four to eight little blind bundles of joy. Those that escape the notice of owls, coyotes and snakes reach maturity in approximately two months. They don't linger to share familial territory.

Except when breeding, weasels are solitary souls. Yet they need to be aware of each other, if only for the purposes of avoidance. Without the benefits of social intercourse, you'd think that communication would be difficult. Au contraire. Beneath the tail of the weasel is a pair of sacs containing a generous amount of musk oil - thick, creamy, and powerfully pungent. There are additional smaller glands along the cheeks and flanks. Weasels mark their territory by smearing scent on prominent objects, where another passing weasel is likely to detect it. They also employ the tried and true scent delivery system of urine and scat. What is so fascinating about the musk deposits is that they are scent coded to each individual, conveying essential information about gender, dominance, age, and breeding condition.

Lastly, there's the issue of the undeserved bad PR that weasels endure. We've all heard, perhaps been guilty of using, unflattering phrases containing the name of this marvelous mammal. It is believed that these were inspired by the weasel's flexible form. Yet, one never hears political doublespeak referred to as "gymnast jargon." Ergo, it's important to note that should I ever refer to any person as being "a weasel," I do so with the utmost admiration. For, thanks to the arrival of the ermine, I weaseled out of hours of household drudgery.

Questions, comments, or other feedback to Judy Sullivan.