The prairie habitat and its
associated wildlife has always
been an important component
of the American landscape,
including the prairie dog
colonies which support an
animal known as the black-footed
ferret, which is one of the
rarest mammals in the world.
In general, there was a sense that
black-footed ferrets were in
trouble even in the 1950s,
1940s, 1930s. But by 1979 in
fact, there was some sense that
the animal might actually be
extinct at that point.
And then a ranch dog brought in a ferret
in Meteetse, Wyoming and found
another small population was found
which persisted for a number of
years in the early 80s until we
had to take the last animals
that had been exposed to
disease into captivity.
And in 1985, there was
an effort that had just begun
to start a small scale captive
breeding program for ferrets
that would have been operated
by the Wyoming Game and Fish.
We are currently in front of the
National Black-footed Ferret
Conservation Center and our main job
is kind of to be the center for
captive breeding and other
recovery actions throughout the program.
Sometimes you have to
wake them up a little bit.
Now we have a few hundred ferrets
scattered across the West,
in 25 different sites.
We're aiming to have 3,000 ferrets
across the West to take the
species off the endangered
species list. But those
populations will require long
term maintenance to make sure
that they don't disappear as well.
There's already enough
prairie dog habitat available
in the West to meet our
recovery goal of three thousand
adult ferrets in the wild.
To get black-footed ferret recovery
accomplished, to get ferrets on
the ground and to maintain them on
the ground, you've got to have
a lot of partners. If you're
working in 12 different states,
that means 12 different state
game and fish agencies. It
means a number of tribes, county
commissioners, neighboring
landowners, other federal
agencies. So partners are the
key to black-footed ferret recovery.
The tribal lands in
the Western states represent
huge amounts of acreage that
could potentially raise ferrets
in the wild.
I think our program
is a good example of
how the Fish and Wildlife
Service can partner with tribes
to recover an endangered species.
It's not coincidence
that some of the best habitat
and threatened or endangered
species are found on ranches.
It's an ideal fit.
What we've seen in Colorado around the
ferret program is really the
way to change how conservation
is done that works with
landowners and for landowners.
As a landowner that's been
involved with black-footed
ferret reintroduction for a few
decades now. It hasn't really
affected our management or the
economics of our, our operation.
So it's really the great
opportunity to come into the
landscapes now and and really
conserve these large ranches
either by acquisition like we
did for this particular one or
through conservation easements
to maintain their status as
active ranches.
We have the opportunity
to pay landowners
to keep and maintain prairie
dogs for the benefits and release of
black footed ferrets on their
property. And it has proven to
be extremely successful.
By going out and conserving
ferrets. We can do an amazing
job preserving the prairie for
all the other countless species
that rely on prairie dog colonies.
With ferrets, there's a
big, big landscape out there
that's fairly empty as long as
it's ranching country and you
can manage for prairie dogs and
a lot of places in the West. So
there are places for ferrets to
go and that's the exciting
thing about the zoo partners is
they see that they can breed
every female ferret they have
and as many young as they
produce, we'll find a place to
reintroduce them.
Beautiful, they're beautiful. Normally . . .
The SSP or the species survival
plan, our primary responsibility
is to manage the
genetics of this very small
population in case they should
go extinct in the wild again,
we'll have an assurance colony
in captivity. We may a loose
ferret here in a minute.
The role of the National Conservation
Center where we are is to house
the largest number of captive
black-footed ferrets in the program.
All our ferrets here at the
center, before they're
released are vaccinated for
three main things: canine
distemper, plague, sylvatic
plague in an animal, and
rabies. Before we release an
animal, they'll get all three of
those vaccinations because they
are very susceptible to all three
of those diseases in the wild.
Before we release any
animals, the animal must pass
preconditioning where an animal
displays its ability to kill
prairie dog prey or not.
Preconditioning has been a
technique used for other, the
recovery of other endangered
species. The research involving
preconditioning of black-footed
ferrets was conducted by our
partners at the U.S. Geological Survey.
In the process, we
released animals that had been
raised in cages and various
types of preconditioned
animals side by side on the
same prairie dog colonies.
The survival's went from about four
percent for cage-reared animals to
well over forty percent for
preconditioned, pen-experienced
kits. And in the best case
scenarios, we even got the
survival up to a better than
80 percent.
Preconditioning lasts for
a minimum of 30 days. And
they're, animals are fed live prairie
dog prey once a week. And if the
animals prove successful at
killing prairie dogs, then they are
eligible for release candidates
and sent to one of our
reintroduction sites.
The release experience for the
staff is very exciting. It's
kind of tough to see them go
out the door but our staff are
extremely dedicated and they're
really excited to think that
they're part of a process where
they're bringing back an
endangered species.
Hopefully, the release from a ferret's
perspective is not terribly
stressful because through
preconditioning they've been
exposed to a burrow environment
and wild prairie dog prey.
And ideally they would kill a
prairie dog the first night.
There he goes.
Even though I retired a couple of
years ago, I continue to work
on black-footed ferret recovery,
primarily because I see this as
a real achievable goal.
We can reach the recovery goal that
we've put forth in our plan but
it's going to require active
management for the long term.
And with the zoo's help, we can
recover this species in my
lifetime. So it's very exciting
and I'm looking forward to the
day where we can recover the
black-footed ferret and zoos
can stop breeding the black-
footed ferret in captivity
because they will be recovered
in the wild.
It's part of why
people live in the West. You
ask people why is there an
interest in wildlife? It adds
to the quality of their life.
And this particular program
will not only benefit black-footed
ferrets but all these other
sensitive species, because as I
said, it will also serve as a
model for other species
recovery efforts in the future.