With the Winter Olympics, Italy missed a great opportunity to raise awareness and promote conservation of ermines, about which very little data exists. Now a project aims to change that.
Never before have ermines enjoyed such fame as in recent months. Chosen as the mascots of the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics, ermines appeared on television, on stages, on competition slopes and in people's homes as keychains or plush toys. And yet, in reality, they are one of the least known and studied species in Italy.
"In our country, and across the Alps in general, there have been only two research projects on the ermine," biologist Marco Granata, a researcher at the University of Turin specialising in the ecology and conservation of small carnivores and founder of Ermlin project, tells LifeGate. "One in the early 1990s in Valle d'Aosta and the other towards the end of the decade in Adamello Brenta, and after that the ermine was forgotten." For the following twenty years, no one in Italy studied this species through dedicated research projects. Until Granata, who, as a doctoral student, launched a research project specifically to fill this gap.
Ermines are small mammals belonging to the mustelids, a family of carnivores that also includes weasels, martens, stone martens, badgers, polecats and ferrets. In Italy, their habitat ranges from woodlands to alpine meadows and rocky terrain, up to altitudes of 3,500 metres. However, little is known about their health and conservation status, beyond the fact that they are present in fragmented populations across the entire Alpine arc. We have no data and therefore no figures to indicate how many individuals currently live on our territory. The IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) notes that "adequate information on the status of the ermine across the Alpine arc is not available" and that "populations of this species can undergo considerable fluctuations."
"I always use the metaphor of wild ghosts, because they are small, rare, elusive — you practically never see them," Granata tells us. "But since they are probably not faring well, they risk becoming ghosts in reality in every sense of the word, disappearing from many of our country's mountains."
They are wild ghosts that risk becoming real ones too
One of the ermine's most distinctive characteristics is its moult. In summer the ermine is tawny brown, with a white belly and a black-tipped tail, while in winter it turns white through a series of hormonal changes that alter the pigmentation of its fur. "There are white ermines and brown ermines, but they do not generally coexist, because they are the same ermines changing colour twice a year," Granata explains.
The moult serves a purely survival-driven purpose: the ermine wants to camouflage itself against the snow in winter and among the rocky terrain in summer. In winter, in particular, the coat change occurs when the first heavy snowfalls at altitude are expected, in the month of November. "These changes are triggered solely by the photoperiod — that is, the length of daylight hours — independently of how much snow is actually on the ground," Granata explains. "This is somewhat the catch: because if it doesn't snow, the ermine does not decide to skip its moult." And in a context of ever-decreasing snowfall and rising temperatures that are pushing snow cover and species ever higher up the mountains, the ermine faces growing risks.
The moult has long been the ermine's superpower
"The moult has long been the ermine's superpower," Granata continues. "Not so much because it helps with hunting. The ermine hunts its prey inside tunnels and rocky terrain, typically in the dark — it does not hunt by ambush. It does not need camouflage to predate, but it is camouflaged to avoid being predated. We are talking about a very small animal that can easily be carried off by birds of prey and larger carnivores. So blending into the background has been an advantage that for a very long time has allowed it to survive."
Survival that we already know to be naturally low: estimates, based on data from Switzerland and Sweden in similar environments, show that during the first winter roughly 10 per cent of ermine populations survive. "So if only one ermine in ten already survives, and that ermine is then taken by a fox because the background is no longer white while the ermine is, that is a serious problem — and it is linked to climate change."
The topic of the moult also made it to the Olympics through the two mascots (Tina and Milo, white and brown respectively to represent the Olympics and the Paralympics), but in a different way. During the Games, neither the species' ecology nor the phenomenon of colour change and the potential risks linked to the current climate situation were explained — whether in dedicated moments or on the official website. The possible result is that the message that reached the general public was that white and brown are two distinct types of ermine.
This example reflects the kind of popular science communication that was lacking around the two mascots as an Italian species — communication that could, in fact, have been a powerful awareness-raising action for the public.
"We perhaps naively expected some interest from the Winter Games," says Granata, recalling the discovery of the mascots and the hope that the animal he studies every day would finally have a stage. "But as time went on, we realised with great disappointment that this was not the case. One idea that would not have been difficult to implement — a way to leave a small but positive ecological legacy — was to get the message across about the current need to save the mascot or help study it.
In October we launched a direct appeal to the Fondazione Milano Cortina proposing that a small portion of Olympic funds also be allocated to the research and conservation of this species. But a few days before the Olympics, they let us know that unfortunately they were unable to support our proposals. It was certainly a hugely missed opportunity, given that it was a very prominent mascot and could have made a difference by explaining something not only about the stoat but about the Alpine environment in general."
The stoat, though small, is an umbrella species — meaning that its protection also has indirect positive effects on the other species that share its ecosystem and habitat. When stoats are studied, they yield data on a range of other species that elude monitoring methods or research projects, such as the snow vole (which stoats prey upon), the garden dormouse — one of the species that has lost the most range over recent decades in Europe — or certain shrews that live at altitudes of up to 3,000 metres. "The Alpine pine vole is another mythological species that nobody really knows. The stoat is just one example of the species we have no data on, that need to be studied, and that are simply waiting for someone to start studying them," says Granata.
For this reason, years ago Granata launched Ermlin Project through his doctoral research — a research and monitoring project on the stoat and other small carnivores in Italy that today, as well as being the only one of its kind, has grown into a community of conservation biologists. With the aim of increasing studies and therefore the protection of these species, a crowdfunding campaign was launched at the end of March.
"We really need long-term field data in order to be able to plan effective conservation actions for the stoat and all the species sheltering under its small umbrella," says Granata. Through various levels of support — from purchasing T-shirts, caps and tote bags to taking part in field days — it will be possible to create a monitoring network for the stoat, ensure the presence of researchers in the field, build a long-term scientific study and, "why not," establish a doctoral research programme dedicated to the stoat.
The aim of this network is also to initiate various collaborations with the parties involved — parks, associations and individuals alike — to create a real community that endures over time.
"We want to try to build a community around this species that is not merely the fur trim on judges' robes, the symbol of the Olympics or the cute little creature bounding along mountain paths, but is a wild species — probably at risk of extinction — that perfectly embodies our increasingly fragile mountains."