Meet the animal behind the bad reputation.

Why does it have a bad rap? Some blame Shakespeare and others Theodore Roosevelt, but in reality it’s because farmers long believed this hot-dog shaped – and sized – namesake of the weasel or mustelid family was weasel-ing into chicken coops and stealing the product.

In fairness, who doesn’t like chicken?

Weasels do, but the more we learn about this tiny predator, the more we realize they actually don’t love the taste of chicken as much as they love the taste of mice, rats, voles and other types of rodents – look, it’s an acquired taste.

It’s also ironic. Despite giving weasels a bad reputation, they’re actually a friend to humans and the economy.

Weasels have evolved their tiny bodies to weasel into – sorry, navigate around – the tight passages where rodents are found. Owls are excellent at above surface rodent control, but the weasel is the expert at sub-surface killing – driving what’s known as rodent cycling.

Well, they’re not bad at above surface killing either. Kilogram for kilogram, weasels are one of the most skilled predators on the landscape.

They can kill prey up to ten times their size because they’re fast, can climb, swim and dance.

Wait, what?

Yes, weasels have been known to dance their prey into submission. Which puts dance competitions into a whole new light. Anyway.

They also have amongst the sharpest teeth of any animal on the planet. They bite through skulls and spinal cords…like a jaguar.

It’s why weasels can often turn predators into prey – like the time a raptor tried to make the weasel its dinner and the weasel killed it mid-flight and used the tumbling corpse as a parachute. Seriously. Did I mention the weasel has one of the best brains-to-body mass ratios?

Their heart beats at 400 pulses per minute, which means a weasel is wired like you or me after ten big mugs – yes, mugs – of espresso.

The consequence is they have a crazy high metabolism – they’re never seeing that extra mouse on their waistline. While a cat needs to eat one third of its body weight to survive in the wild, a weasel needs to eat at least three times their body weight each day to live.

Which is why the weasel spends so much time hunting – and stashing its kills. Some see it as psychopathic surplus killing, but in reality it’s just smart planning, creating a cellar of food for the hard days ahead – just as humans do.

And this is exactly what nature intended for the weasel.

Without the ability to store fat because of its high metabolism, it ensures the weasel is always on the prowl, containing those easy to reproduce rodent populations from spreading disease or destroying crops or hurting biodiversity.

It’s also why nature evolved three types of weasels in this country – two of which can be found in Mount Robson: the short-tailed weasel, designed for the marshy forest of the boreal, and the long tailed-weasel, which is designed for open meadows and the high alpine.

And to help them be their best selves, nature also gave them one more superpower: the ability to change colour.

When the days get shorter, the lack of light actually triggers a hormone reaction in the weasel called photoperiod. Which, in non-science speak, means that instead of producing the brown pigments in their fur so they can blend into their habitat during the summer; they produce white pigments to blend into the increasingly snowy landscape.

And when the days start getting longer, the opposite happens.

It gets cooler.

Where there is no snow – and daylight hours don’t fluctuate hugely – the weasel doesn’t change colours. And in the shoulder seasons of spring and fall where snow is patchy, the weasel’s photoperiod process mimics the patchwork landscape creating patchwork camouflage.

But because this process is triggered more by light than temperature, if the snow doesn’t fall in the winter, weasels can really stand out and, according to recent studies, that means decreases in weasel populations and increases in rodent populations.

Scientists don’t know for sure, but believe that these adaptable predators will eventually evolve with a changing climate – with non-colour changing weasels from the south possibly migrating north if our ecosystems suddenly have more room or carrying capacity.

And we all hope that’s true. Because in addition to being cute and wickedly smart, weasels are nature’s best rodent control program. And for that reason, maybe we should throw the weasel a little love and help with its PR problem.

You know, instead of saying you’re such a weasel, say you’re such a weasel!

After all, few animals are as cool and important as this one.