Is This A Polecat?

[Farplace]

This animal was found on the A689 Weardale this morning. Is he a polecat?
Jan

[Dogghound]

Yes it certainly is consistent with all polecat features. However it can be hard to rule our hybrids but I personally feel this is a polecat and quite a defined one at that.

And a Male

[Farplace]

Thanks Dogghound. The Vincent Wildlife Trust have asked for some photos of his face, which I will attempt to do tomorrow. Will keep you posted. He was a magnificent creature, wasn't he?

[The Woodman]

The facial colouration appears to be quite pale, perhaps suggesting a hybrid.

Difficult to tell as flash photography brings out the creamy under-fur.

[Dogghound]

You are basically looking at the dark facial mask, white edges to the ears, darker colour, lack of a large throat patch, lack of markings on the belly, restricted facial markings i.e. cheeks. The face looks better on the other side to the close up as it is quite heavily damaged. September usually sees a peak in polecat fatalities as young disperse although this looks like an adult animal.

[The Woodman]

There's a 1998 specimen shown on p46 of the VWT's Distribution and Status &c Report from Staindrop, County Durham.

For comparison, in the same report on p86, there's a image of two dark polecat ferrets in hand, the pelage is so similar to wild animals that even those dealing animals on a regular basis may have difficulty in distinguishing. having bred them for over twenty five years, I reckon I could have shown an animal that might have passed for a wild specimen.

Again, from the report, an interesting image (b) on p100 shows the ventral views of skins from Cumbria, Herefordshire and those from captive bred polecat x ferret. The chin patch variation shows well.

The later VWT Polecat Survey of Britain 2004-2006 put the Cumbria population into the lowest purity category as 71.6% of verifiable records were true polecat.

From a personal perspective, having been familiar with many of the Cumbrian specimens collected for the this report, I convinced myself that several were true to type.

Durham had a total of 3 polecat / ferrets comprising 1 dark and 2 pale verified specimens and no true polecats.

For those with an interest in such matters, a useful ID pdf can be found here
http://www.vwt.org.uk/downloads/PolecatFerret.pdf

[Farplace]

Ok... here are the rather gory headshots of this animal. Im more inclined to think its a hybrid now, but either way, he was once a magnificent animal.

[The Woodman]

Note how the white band encircles the nose (rhinarium) without a connecting strip of black fur to it on the bridge of the nose.

The general point I was trying to make in my last post is that it is difficult to determine a definitive ID on pelage alone.

[davecatt]

Same problem with Scottish wild cat;after a few generations its difficult tell the real thing from the feral. In this case I'd go for a male of feral origin though probably not first generation.

[Farplace]

Thanks everyone.... So if he a hybrid, does this mean there are pure polecats out there? I was looking at the home page of the VWT Polecat website, and their pictured polecat looks to have even more white on its face than mine does. Pine Martens - the Vincent Trust
I am sure you can see my confusion