A northern Minnesota fur trapper inadvertently snared a marten out of season, then swiftly brought the normally ornery critter back from near death with mouth-to-snoot resuscitation.
The furious revival of the furry creature played out Saturday in the woods near the southern shore of Lower Red Lake in central Beltrami County, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.
That’s where the trapper was checking one of his bobcat sets and was upset that he had caught the marten, which showed little signs of life.
Conservation officer Nick Prachar said Thursday the trapper called him for advice on what to do with the wounded weasel. But the man quickly hung up, only to call back to report the marten just might make it after all.
“He said he started blowing on its nose and massaging its chest,” Prachar said. “Next thing you know, it started moving, moving its eyes and came back to life.”
Prachar said martens “are vicious and mean as heck. When he first told me he did CPR, I asked him, ‘You mean it didn’t eat your face off?’ “
Still unsure of the marten’s chances for survival, the trapper put the animal in his side-by-side off-road vehicle, drove home and met Prachar there.
The officer, who’s been handling news media inquiries on behalf of the trapper, told him the marten “looked like it was pretty healthy. It was chirping and yelling at me. I scooped it out of the side-by-side with a leaf rake, and it scampered into the woods.”
The marten, whose fur is largely brown with gold or yellow tints, is native to much of northern and northeastern Minnesota. Adults weigh about 2 pounds and grow to 2 to 2 1⁄2 feet in length from nose to tail.
The most recent trapping season for martens in Minnesota spanned nine days in early December and was combined with its cousin the fisher. The maximum take for the two species in total was two, Prachar said.
Prachar said in his 10 years on the job, he has seen his fair share of odd rescues, including the rescue of deer from a swimming pool, “but never one that included CPR on a wild animal.”