Little is recorded concerning enemies of weasels and it may be that
other vertebrates are not an important factor in removing the annual
increase. Errington (1935:195-198), in Iowa, found four, putrid
weasels about dens of red foxes, _Vulpes fulvus_. No remains of weasels
were found in the feces of the foxes and it appears that the foxes do
not eat the weasels. The label on an adult female specimen of _M. f.
spadix_ from Boone County, Iowa, bears the date May 10, 1938, and the
annotation, by T. G. Scott, "fox-killed." Bailey (1931:328) recounts
that "Weller saw a coyote carrying one in its mouth" at an elevation of
11,500 feet in the Pecos Mountains of New Mexico. The type specimen, a
young female, of _M. f. peninsulae_ from Hudsons, Florida, according to
Rhoads (1894:155) ". . . was caught in the woods by a cat." Barber and
Cockerell (1898:189) mention one that was killed by a dog in Mesilla
Park, New Mexico. Moore (1945:258) records the death of a weasel in
Florida. Circumstantial evidence indicated that it was killed by the
bite of a water moccasin. In the Biological Surveys Collection of
mammals in the United States National Museum, the label with the skull
of an adult male weasel, No. 160663, from Banning, California, carries
the information that the skull was taken from the stomach of a
_Crotalus_ (rattlesnake).
In reporting on a study of owl predation in Delaware County,
Pennsylvania, Pearson and Pearson (1947:143) mention that "weasels are
found throughout the county but . . . were never eaten by the owls."
The Uinta spermophile at some places and times probably is a prey
sought by the long-tailed weasel but Warren (1924:265) records
_Citellus armatus_ repeatedly chasing weasels in August, at Camp
Roosevelt, Yellowstone National Park, and how the ground squirrels at
one time ignored the weasel even when it came within a few inches of a
squirrel.
Warren (1932:71), on August 2, 1931, at Grand Mesa, Colorado, obtained
a large male weasel with two porcupine quills in it; one was near the
mouth and another "in the skull." Osgood (1935:156) writes that near
Rutland, Vermont, a male weasel "taken in April, was heavily
parasitized and had several short porcupine quills embedded in its
neck, head, and shoulders." The remainder of Osgood's account implies
that the weasel may have turned to porcupine because the normal food
for weasels was scarce at the time. Porcupine quills, then, are a
hazard for weasels although it is unlikely that the porcupine is ever
to be classed as an enemy of the weasel.
An accident of another sort, which must at the very least have been
annoying to the weasel that suffered it, was recorded by Soper
(1921:37). The animal had a stick lodged crosswise between the fourth
upper premolar teeth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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