Up Close: Utah Man Trains Mink To Hunt
Nov 6, 2019, 9:20 PM | Updated: 10:19 pm
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — A Salt Lake County man has an unusual profession — not only does he train his dogs, but he’s also managed to train mink to hunt.
The animals are rat hunters, helping the ZD Cattle Company in the fields west of Eagle Mountain.
Joseph Carter said he grew up training animals and didn’t want to believe that minks are vicious and can’t be trained.
“We will send the mink down into the shed or down their holes and the mink will catch whatever it can and what gets away from the mink the dogs catch up,” he said.
Despite the animals and their success, Carter said he actually makes a living by sharing videos of his team at work on YouTube.
“My biggest video has over 10 million views,” he said. “I have several that are just over nine million views. I was doing something that was very unique hadn’t been done before training mink and I thought well, I should share this.”
Carter also said using his dogs to remove the rats is also more humane than using rat poison.
“If they eat poison, you are looking at (a) 48 to 24 hour (period) excruciating pain of internal bleeding,” he said.
