Shouldn't the trapper be cleaning the traps with something in between trap victims to kill the smell of death and blood and whatever? And wouldn't it help if he coated it with mink oil or something to disguise the scent of people? I don't want to tell him how to do his job, I hate people that do that, but I have hinted around and he seems to think it's just the disruption of the normal scenery that is scaring the mink off. We accidentally caught a skunk in the "kill" trap the other night...it did NOT kill it instantly and it suffered all night with it's face caught in the trap, til we found it and my son shot it. It was so upsetting. I don't care what it is, nothing deserves to suffer like that, especially that skunk that has lived behind our barn for years and done nothing wrong, really, except steal eggs once in a while. . And I can't believe that the mink doesn't know exactly what happened to that poor skunk.
