CAPTIVE mink suffer because no one lets them go for a swim, according to
zoologist Georgia Mason and her colleagues from the University of Oxford. In a
study designed to reveal the favourite activities of farmed mink, the animals
had to break down doors to reach toys or a swimming pool. The mink tried harder
to reach the pool than their toys. When deprived of the pool, they had the same
elevated levels of stress hormones as when they were deprived of food,
suggesting that mink are not happy on farms (Nature, vol 410, p
35).
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