Today I had the opportunity to join a student from University of Malta on his ongoing study of the Maltese Weasel. The aim is to see what impact habitat fragmentation has on the weasel or Ballotra as it is called locally. (Mustela nivalis) population in Malta. Not many studies are available on this shy and elusive species here in Malta so this is kind of baseline.
I have had a wish to work with the weasel for a while now since not many great images are available in Malta, so when this opportunity was presented to me I was very excited. The aim is to catch some individuals and GPS trackers on them to be able to study them better. For me it means that I can improve my chances of being in the right place at the right time with my camera. For the student in question I hope to provide him with some good images and maybe some video of this creature’s behaviour.
The student has been trying to catch individuals for 2-3 months now but so far hasn’t been successful. The weasel, or ballotra, is shy, elusive and very intelligent so catching one will be hard so wish us luck 🙂
Photo By: Raymond Galea