the summer is good to them, but in the winter they spend all day and night swimming from hut to hut in total darkness, fighting with other rats, trying to avoid mink, fox, coyote and traps. swimming 10 yards to find the hut frozen shut and repeating this over and over if you don't drown in the process.... yuck
2007-02-07 05:43:34 · 2 answers · asked by john j 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Zoology
i believe muskrat mortality in n mn to be 75-90 percent... they prosper because they are rats and produce many, many offspring...
2007-02-07 05:53:07 · update #1
You listed a bunch of natural predators, but there are trappers who earn extra money in the winter trapping them. Since it is the only life they know I think they are happy though.
2007-02-07 05:56:15 · answer #1 · answered by Thomas S 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
I don't know, they seem pretty successful. Animals don't often mate and raise young if they are suffering and miserable.
2007-02-07 13:49:18 · answer #2 · answered by Jerry P 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋