Winter weasel still brown?

Why would a weasel still have not changed to white? We have not been above freezing for weeks and where this one was caught in a mink box there is about two feet of snow on the ground.
Just curious why it haven’t changed yet? Every other weasel I have caught this time of year is entirely white.

Some weasels just dont change.

Health issues could be a cause of failure to prime.

Don't know but that's one purdy weasel. I like that color

Thanks for the info. Was just curious.


Yeah thanks, I thought it was pretty unique. I will send it off to the tannery when I make a new shipment.

I had one in a Latah county quite a few years ago that was that same cocoa color midwinter, I've caught a couple others that only partially changed and were piebald even in January. All were longtails, I believe.

We will see if this is an anomaly for that area. I saw one running around a few weeks ago that was still brown. Thinking it was that same one. I am hoping this is the only one out there. Before I switched to trigger pans on the trap I got robbed for pounds of beaver meat bait out of that location.

If you read The most successful methods of trapping weasels by LaVern Israelson he talks about a golden weasel that looks like what he described

Whatever it’s a pretty one, I’m not much on getting things mounted but that I think I would do so

Well just checked again. Still shocked they are still brown. Caught another one and the same mink box that hasn’t changed yet. Haha maybe it’s not as uncommon as I was thinking, just never had a brown one this time of year. Thing is frozen into the trap and needs to thaw out.

I don't have many weasels, catch one a year on my property. Both in the past two years were brown. One was caught mid January and the other early February.

DNA, which you just eliminated

Just yesterday I read about weasels in a very interesting book titled Land Mammals of Oregon (published by Oregon State University I think but I’ll double check). In short, both short and long-tailed west of the Cascades don’t change. Some locations in eastern Oregon all or almost all do change. In other eastern Oregon locations a portion of the population changes but what interested me most was that at these mixed locations the literature claimed the females changed and the males stayed brown. The authors cited a lot of literature I didn’t look into so I don’t know how accurate this is.

They also discussed the role genetics play in this. Weasels taken from northern locations and released in southern locations continued to change and those from souther locations moved north stayed brown.

I don’t know that this has anything at all to do with your situation, but thought it was interesting.

He is like obummer only relates to his brown side

Here in PA every now & then you'll see a weasel that won't turn white

I caught one last year end of December just like the one you caught brown on its back white on belly

Weasel in a certain latitudes turn white due to hormonal changes from the length of light received through their eyes.

That alone is what triggers the change to take effect.
It's a shot in the dark, but if the litter was born later than normal, perhaps the hormones may not be fully developed.
That has been my feelings on it, after seeing young Snowshoe hares become slow to change